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Letters 


VIZ., 


only letters, from a Brother 
on the “other side” to 
one on this 



by Francis I. Maule 






































































('•kiss 

Book __ ' V\ ^ \ 


CopightN 0 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 














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Only Letters 

— viz. - 

only a lot of not necessarily 
improving, nor insistently instruct¬ 
ive letters, from a Brother on 
the “other side” to one on this 

- by- 

m 

Francis I. Maule 


FOR SALE BY 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 

PHILADELPHIA 






















LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 25 1904 


Copyright Entry 



Copyright, 1904 
By Francis I. Maule 



—Va l lia tiv e - 

£ i 

These letters To My Brother, the sum 
of whose provocation was remaining at 
home, plus the “contributory negligence ” 
of their unmurmuring-condonation, 

F. /. M. 




Only Letters 


Paris , July 28th , /900. 

My dear M-: 

You will doubtless be astonished to learn 
of a radical change in our destination, by the substitu¬ 
tion of this ever gay city, with the superadded gaiety 
of an Exposition-tide at its flood, for the grimy, bust¬ 
ling, ill-smelling Rotterdam of our first intent. 
As the result of much (by them), sober second 
thought when we were “half-seas over," those 
“divinities" that so constantly “shape" our 
“roughly hewn ends," decided that they should not 
miss the great show before invading the “low 
countries.” Accordingly here we are at our delight¬ 
ful old quarters in the narrow little Rue Daunou, on 
the brink of the Vortex. Nothing changed a whit 
since we were last here in ’97: Madam, Max, Chef, 
Poodle, birds,—all these more or less tributary rills 
to the placid current of an unalloyed comfort still in¬ 
tact and flowing harmoniously on. 

Our voyage was eventlessly commonplace, a mere 
repetition of any one of an hundred midsummer, 
east-bound Atlantic passages. On deck, the inevi¬ 
table rows of berugged pronenesses in varying stages 




IO 


Only Letters 

of torpor, those ubiquitous plates in the scuppers, 
with the half-spent cups of bouillon, the nibbled bis¬ 
cuit, flaccid lemon et al, and the tentative flirtation 
incident to the gradual convalescing of steward- 
placed propinquities. The usual quota of clever- 
looking “reserves,” saying little, reading much, of 
the sort that rarely ripen on short runs. Of course a 
superabundance of others, insistently reversing all of 
these conditions of desirability, plus the never-absent 
lot of those walkers-up-and-down, with their aggress¬ 
ive buoyancy, so exasperating to others whose 
promenades are exclusively “to rail” and return. 

In the smoke-room, the usual gambling gangs in 
ultra nautical caps, loud of apparel and of tongue, 
discoursing mainly of textile merchandise, pro¬ 
nounced “goots,” grammar absent on leave, no no¬ 
ticeable efforts to conceal diamond jewelry—(East- 
bound now, you know). Ham sandwiches alone 
enjoy a cherished neglect from the gemmed and 
grimy, chip-gathering hands, that paw over those of 
beef, fish, tongue, and cheese. This highly absorb¬ 
ent gang kept Heinrich, the good-natured steward, 
incessantly on the jump. A most obliging fellow 
was that same Heinrich, with his round, rosy cheeks, 
shoe-brush hair, and lacking one front tooth, which 
lent to his oft-recurring smiles, almost the “draw¬ 
ing” power of a “tack puller.” There is, however, 
always a selvage of decency to these sordid webs, 
and more or less, agreeable aloofnesses, that stray into 
the smoke-room for after dinner coffee, quiet con¬ 
verse, and comfortable lounging,—but let us return 
to our Paris “ muttons.” 


Only Letters 11 

Of course the one, all-absorbing interest is the 
“Fair,” to which we will devote ourselves for per¬ 
haps a week, or at least long enough for the achieve¬ 
ment of an impression, and of that surfeit,—inevita¬ 
ble when “quart’’-eyes are forced to fill “pint” as¬ 
similative possibilities. 

The exposition certainly is a remarkable blending 
of the wonderful with the disappointing. There is 
of necessity, a certain degree of general sameness, 
about these great periodic shows, with their vast 
accumulations, that could not be seen, even super¬ 
ficially, under months. In the grouping of its great 
buildings, and in the architectural features of most 
of them, Paris is not comparable with Chicago. 
Of course due allowance must be made for the fact 
that here all designs were seriously handicapped by 
existing streets and buildings, that could not be ob¬ 
structed nor destroyed, while our site was a bare bit of 
prairie-land lying fallow for fame. The main en¬ 
trance from the Champs Elysees is frankly horrid, in 
its tawdry presentation of a conception vulgar to the 
Coney Island point, while the superimposed frantic 
female, writhing in her rigid bath-robe, gains vastly 
by the arrival of “ Blucher’s alternative.” 

In the purely decorative features, in the treatment 
of comparatively subordinate details, in the installa¬ 
tions, indoors and out, and preeminently in the 
handling of colour, the whole show is simply mag¬ 
nificent. Paris is not overcrowded now, and Eng¬ 
lish few and far between, Pour Rire, and various 
other journals of the caustically comic cult, having so 
shamefully lampooned Her Gracious Majesty of late, 


12 


Only Letters 

that her liegemen have, with few exceptions, 
shunned the show. 

“ Mirabile dictu,” extortion in general scarcely ex¬ 
ists, and even the cabbies are no worse than normal, 
and do not seriously or systematically overcharge. 
Outside of a few of the deliberately “swell” cafes 
within the walls, the franc of yore still possesses a 
respectable purchasing power. 

Than the grounds, flowers, fountains, and general 
out-of-doors decorative features,—nothing could be 
more lovely, and this, despite the heat which has 
been, even for a North American, terrific; but then, 
what will not one bear unmurmuringly when in pur¬ 
suit of pleasure ? 

E. and 1 commenced yesterday on the Art-Build¬ 
ing, and I should say “did” two or three miles 
of canvasses—possibly a sixth of the entire showing, 
which, taken as a whole, we did not regard as better 
than our gathering in ’93. 

The Official Buildings, erected by the various 
countries, are delightful, especially those of Norway, 
Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, wherein the triumphs 
of natural, unerring taste are wrought out, with sim¬ 
ple, every-day material. Italy superb without and 
within, England, Germany, and Russia, rich and 
sumptuous, but the “eyrie” of the “ Great-American 
Eagle,” while doubtless quite a robust “debit,” was 
an infinitesimally small “credit” to us. 

The illuminations at night are charming, in the 
Rue de Paris (“French for Midway”), where are 
gathered most of the “side shows,” an avenue of 
lindens was thickly hung with small, circular lan- 


13 


Only Letters 

terns, of a deep orange, which, when lighted, re¬ 
sulted in a long vista of seeming orange-trees, laden 
with fruit. 

But here come “rolls, and coffee,” and perforce 
an end to this. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Paris , August ist, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

The Shah arrived on Saturday, and 
was given a formal reception, and quite informal 
pistol shot, the latter luckily missing its not so very 
estimable mark. He looked very Fine in his best tar¬ 
boosh, with its sunburst of big diamonds, and in a 
pea-green diaphanous bed-gown, with a wonderful 
shawl around his waist—quite a correct “pebble” 
he, of the beach Oriental, I fancy. 

The streets abound with all sorts of polyglot, bare¬ 
legged “ bou-fantnesses,” with flapping sandals, 
curved swords, and masses of filmy silks wound 
around them in wondrous fashion, while towering 
turbans exhaust the seeming possibilities of color and 
swathings. Some of these Orientals are superb 
specimens alike in figure, face, and raiment, and one 
of the very “finest” lives next door to us. He is a 
great Nubian of (I should think) six feet four, as 
black as a raven’s recollection of the ninth plague, 
always in snowy-white silk robes, and always with a 
long ebony staff with a massive gold knob in his 





Only Letters 

jewel-covered hand. His turban is laid in a coil of 
heavy matted folds, quite like Kipling’s " white- 
cobra,” in the comatose contemplation of an interior 
rabbit. On the front of this turban he wears a great 
oval brooch of dull gold, set with large emeralds and 
turquoises, rather an attractive “bit” to encounter at 
intervals, in the quiet Rue Daunou, shuffling by in 
saffron-hued sandals. 

On Monday we took another turn at the art collec¬ 
tion, and “did” a lot more of its twelve acres, find¬ 
ing many fine American pictures, and an especially 
strong showing in black and white, which attracts a 
deal of attention and enthusiastic comment. The 
showing in jewels is, of course, great, while in sil¬ 
verware Gorham easily “downs ” everything in sight, 
and is overwhelmed with praise and orders. They 
showed me a beaten silver platter, recently passed 
upon by a jury, as the “ finest example of its class 
ever produced,” and “ever,” mark you, is quite a 
long time. A very attractive silver, wash-hand- 
stand, just marked down to $25,000, did not tempt 
me—such things I find will tarnish from the furnace 
gas, despite incessant sapolio; and, moreover, they 
savor of ostentation, and really do not pay one to 
bother with them. 

When lunch time arrives each day,—and it never 
does too soon (you well know how even the dry 
details of “sight-seeing” can whet one’s appetite), 
we prowl along the further bank of the Seine, 
with its continuity of cafes and food shops, of the 
various nationalities, wherein the waiters, male and 
female, “dress the parts,” and, I fancy, local talent 


i5 


Only Letters 

the food, although various presumably “ national 
dishes” are served at cavil-creative rates. Yesterday 
in “ Bosnia,” to a deal of weird music, and of clank¬ 
ing, red-booted dancing, we partook of an olive-hued 
mess, with an impossible name, and a strenuous, 
clinging odor (probably in private life “ Ville de 
Paris ”), but served with a sauce so delectable as to 
utterly stifle demur. Many of the national buildings 
have these cafes underneath them, and they consti¬ 
tute a long and lively series of arcades, along which 
you stroll and select the one that seems most attract¬ 
ive. As you sit in the grateful shade of this arcaded 
avenue, you face “ Old Paris,” just across the narrow 
river,—a charming bit of effective “bogusness,” 
where the best artists and architects have reproduced, 
grouped with consummate skill, and wrought into a 
homogeneous probability, many of the famous build¬ 
ings of the Paris of the Middle Ages. Its streets are 
narrow, crooked, and illy paved, with the corn-com¬ 
pelling cobbles of the pre-asphaltum era. Queer lit¬ 
tle shops abound, each with its quaint metal sign, or 
emblem, and filled to overflowing with scarce-cool- 
enough-to-handle antiques, or mere non-prevaricative 
rubbish. Many of the “ citizens ”are picturesquely clad 
in costumes of the period, and men-at-arms guard 
the canvas ramparts with sure-enough halberds, and 
pace to and fro before the ancient inns and on the 
elevated terrace, whereon is a theatre with posters 
heralding an insistently modern play. “ H.” found 
plenty of game for her kodak, and, if films fail not, 
an odd and motley gathering is a certainty, with 
Arabs, and Turks, soldiers, and sailors (a lot of col- 


i6 


Only Letters 

ored ones from the Baltimore), Anamese, Cossacks, 
Montenegrins, and Peasants galore. Of course we 
can only skim this vast show, stroll through its miles 
of sights, and halt now and again at anything espe¬ 
cially attractive; but the heat is so absolutely wilting 
that each night finds us quite “ done up.” 

I had an amusing adventure with a cabman last 
evening, when E. and I drove home. On alighting, I 
paid the man his proper fare, plus the usual tip, and 
started indoors, when he flew into a rage, stood up 
on his box, and waved his whip frantically, demand¬ 
ing more pay. Finding that nothing more was to be 
had, he turned purple with rage, and, shaking his fist 
at me, fairly yelled out: “I calls you Ros-biffl!” 
with which blighting curse he whipped up his horse 
and dashed off, leaving us well assured that the ex- 
tremest depths of economic turpitude may alone be 
sounded by a “ Roast Beef.” 

As Saturday draws near, we all rejoice over the 
prospect of a quiet day at the sleepy little, lower-class 
English-haunted Bologne, whence on Monday, we 
expect to set our faces to the land of dykes and 
Dutchmen, and where we hope to meet a most agree¬ 
able Hollander, with whom we became fast friends 
on the ship. 

As I write this, the candle burns low, and I, after a 
long and over full day, am seeing its single flickering 
wick so oft repeated that I must bring this to an end, 
and turn the “ravel’d sleave of care” over to the 
ever blessed ‘‘knitter.” 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Only Letters 


17 


The Hague, August 12th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

We left Paris on Saturday afternoon, 
copartners in such a weariness of body and brain 
as transformed sleepy-little fish-flavored, net-strewn, 
Cockney-English pervaded Bologne into a veritable 
haven of rest. We spent Sunday in a semi-torpid 
condition, and, with our reunited forces, started on 
Monday morning for Brussels, where all, but myself, 
had been several times before. There we lodged at 
“ Au Grand Mirror" (anglice, the “dirty looking 
glass”), which “ reflected " small credit on its pro¬ 
prietors, and their conceptions of such vital matters 
as bed and board. We made but a brief halt here,— 
long enough, however, for me to enjoy its fine gal¬ 
lery, and, of course, its famous City Hall, perched 
aloft where its splendid proportions receive a richly 
merited emphasis. 

Thence to Antwerp, with its acres of “ Peter- 
Paurs," over-fed, under-clad ladies. Rubens, un¬ 
questionably great artist that he is, suffers distinctly 
from “ flocking alone," and gains immensely from 
having his often huge, and usually florid canvasses 
environed by works of a distinctly sombre cast. 
There can, however, be but one opinion of his fa¬ 
mous “Descent from the Cross," a marvel of com¬ 
position, color, and anatomy, and with its wondrous 
portrayal of an agonizing sorrow profoundly im¬ 
pressive to any one;—it certainly well deserves to 
rank as one of the half-dozen greatest pictures in 
existence. 



i8 


Only Letters 

To St. Gudule’s of course and on numerous, ever- 
remunerative strolls through crooked streets, full of 
interest, followed by two delightfully cool, silent 
hours in the Plantin Musee, where I could have well 
spent the entire day amid its treasures typographic. 
Do you recall its little inner courtyard, so wan and 
gray, with its narrow cobble-paved paths, its massive 
vine-clad walls, the quaint little leaded paned windows 
peeping through, the mass of green, and the ancient, 
stunted shrubbery, looking a bit discouraged, if mere 
bushes may despond—and then the sun-strewn 
silence that fairly brooded over the place—a silence 
that of itself seemed ancient—’twas indeed a rare 
spot. 

Of course none of this is new to you, but one of 
the infallible “touch-stones” of the delights of 
travel, is the recalling of some half, or quite forgot¬ 
ten pleasureable experience,—is it not so ? 

From Antwerp, all but E. and I went direct by 
train to The Hague, but with her strong predilection 
for unusual routes, plus a veritable instinct for dis¬ 
covering the ofttimes obscured desirable, E. learned 
of a water route to the same city by way of Rotter¬ 
dam, that proved most remunerative. Leaving Ant¬ 
werp at 8 a. m. on a little propeller, we ran down the 
busy Schelde, and soon were winding through the 
group of islands known as Zeeland. Now through 
open stretches of rough, yellow, white-capped 
water, now through the very fields in some little 
canal, with constantly recurring locks, wherein we 
were swallowed up and lost in a brood of boats of 
every degree of navigable obesity, and with a wealth 


i9 


Only Letters 

of color simply amazing. Pea-green, with stripes of 
black, white, and rose-pink, was an especially favored 
combination for hulls, over which huge unwieldy 
sails, of deep chocolate, made up an ensemble of 
color at once novel and charming. On the ponder¬ 
ous rudders, with their lofty posts, usually crouched 
a simpering yellow lion, with a pink, blue, or green 
tail neatly coiled upon his back, and usually laid in a 
set pattern, like the braid on a mess jacket sleeve. 

Some of these canal-locks are splendidly built of 
granite, with wide and massive copings, upon which 
old, young, and middle-aged Holland, tottered, 
skipped, or strolled, with a deal of sabot-clattering, 
and offer blase plums, shop-worn apples, and im¬ 
mature pears, with such showing of rosy cheeks and 
cheery laughter, that many on the motionless boats 
yield to their blandishments. The quaint costumes, 
especially of the little folks, male and female, their 
shouts of laughter, and the running fire of good-na¬ 
tured banter, with a certain amount of quite deliber¬ 
ate bustle, render these frequent lock sojourns most 
entertaining. 

From the lower deck we seem to be traversing 
mere lanes of water, fenced with sloping walls of 
vivid green, like the glacis of an incessant earthwork; 
but from the upper deck the eye roams at will over 
a wide expanse of green—oh! so green meadows! 
Huge black and white Holsteins, grazing knee-deep 
in the lush grass, are silhouetted against the horizon, 
and on every hand windmills are declaiming with 
much waving of arms; low, red-tiled cottages 
abound, and ever and anon a pretentious farmhouse 


20 


Only Letters 

of snowy-whiteness, with its lofty tiled roof, pierced 
with several rows of tiny little eye-like dormer win¬ 
dows, looking oh! so drowsy, indeed looking like so 
many veritable ceramic “ winks but half-wunk. 
Boats everywhere, many seemingly sailing over 
boundless stretches of the verdant glebe, among the 
grazing herds and windmills, but managing to avoid 
the horns of the one, and the revolving sails of the 
other. 

In the doll-house cabin of our tiny steamer we 
were served with an admirable lunch, luckily while 
crossing the only uninteresting stretch of water en- 
route, and we reappear on deck just as we enter the 
narrow, winding Maas. This rapid, bustling river, 
held aloof by a continuous and most elaborate system 
of dykes, has its banks thickly lined with houses and 
trees,—yes, and with people, so utterly quaint and 
toy-like that it seems as if the whole countryside 
should be signed, u e. (water marked?), “Peter 
Newel fecit." Why, one almost comes to expect, in 
swinging around some unlooked-for bend, to encoun¬ 
ter the actual box they put “ it" all away in when it 
* is too dark to “ play" longer! Such tiny little low 
houses, and such betrimmed out of all semblance of 
nature trees, carries one straight back to those toy- 
villages and little curly trees of our childhood that so 
perfectly plagiarized this reality. 

Threading our way up the boat-congested stream, 
passing Dordrecht with a double distillation of down¬ 
right Dutchness in its quintessence of the quaint 
(no one ever should pass Dordrecht, or at least having 
done so,—confess it), we soon see afar under an 


21 


Only Letters 

overhanging pall of soft coal smoke the veritable 
forest of masts that ever crowds the harbor of Rot¬ 
terdam. We soon reach our dock, and, after a hasty 
bite at the Victoria, and a stroll through the quaint 
streets, an hour later finds us alighting at The Hague, 
and anon with bedroom-candles “ alight” as soon as 
may be. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


The Hague, August 16th , /900. 

My dear M-: 

Of course knowing, as I perfectly well 
do, that you have been over this ground, I will try 
not to be offensively instructive, or even furtively 
improving, in giving my impressions of Dutchland 
as I see it. Is not this city a delightful bit of sunny, 
cheerful placidity, with its charming little gallery so 
exceeding rich in Rembrandts, with its few fine old 
buildings, its parks so in the midst, with those 
magnificent beeches, obviously left to Nature’s own 
simple sway ? And then those omnipresent canals, 
of which I never weary, with their gaudily painted, 
bloated cargo boats dozing in the stagnant green 
water; and those fleets of dignified, self-satisfied 
swans, drifting to and fro, as conscious as any mere 
bird may be of its own supremely good looks. 
Along the crooked streets, with the usual emphatic 
strut, used to piece out diminutive statue, no end of 
chubby little pony-built soldiers pass, fondling extra 




22 


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long sabres, and, as a rule, covered with a wealth of 
decorative white cordage, starting from a central 
station on the tall cap, and thence radiating 
promiscuously over all territory above the equator 
—it must be a perfect nuisance to live so en¬ 
meshed. 

Of course you remember the bright little shops, 
with their windows so full of tempting silver baubles, 
and the occasional peasant woman with snowy cap 
and those glittering brass cups over her ears, and the 
clankty-clank of the universal sabot on the prevailing 
cobbles. What a cheery, wholesome, happy people 
be these, so ready to smile, so kindly, so quick at a 
joke, and so constantly jesting together in their jaw¬ 
breaking lingo; and then, what curious signs abound, 
where Y’s and J’s, whose lot with us is to stand idly 
by and see the vowels w6rk; here, all have front- 
seats in this tongue-tangling language. 

We go hence to Amsterdam—is it not odd that 
Dutch Urban-ity so constantly ends in (at least 
phonetic), profanity?—as even a “cursory” knowl¬ 
edge of their chief towns teaches one. At Amster¬ 
dam we hope to meet J., our most agreeable Dutch 
friend of the steamer, who lives at “ Haarlem-by- 
Tulips,” a few miles out from that city. C., with 
the girls, went out to Scheveningen, but returned 
disgusted with its degeneration from the once really 
picturesque fishing village of lowly huts, to a rank 
Coney Islandism, with the net strewn sand-dunes, 
and the hardy fisher-folk simply “ non est.” 

Our route includes Leyden, Haarlem, Delft, and 
possibly a few of the smaller places accessible from 


Only Letters 23 

Amsterdam; but it is quite possible that our friend 
J. may suggest changes in our said plans. 

Out to Delft of a fine “blue and white ” morning 
where, quite apart from the all-pervading porcelain, 
1 found much woefully ill-smelling, but delightfully 
windmilling Dutchness, along no end of yet other 
green scummed, swan-swum canals, borded by queer 
little ruddy brick houses, usually being furbished-up 
by brass-mounted, rosy-cheeked peasants. 

All over the town there brooded a blissful somno¬ 
lence, broken only by an occasional group of chubby 
( “after Tenier”) children, whose tongue-chattering 
and sabot-clattering rang through the otherwise 
silent streets. 

Did you go into any of the principal churches here, 
with their lofty cavernous spaciousness emphasized 
by a total lack of color and ornamental features ? In 
some that I visited the light streamed through great 
windows of ordinary white glass upon plain lime- 
washed walls, with here and there a mural monu¬ 
ment, or, perhaps, one let into a brick-built column, 
and, in sooth, cold and sepulchral seemed these huge 
barn-like temples. 

In one here, I found many elaborately carved mon¬ 
uments, and with some fine old brasses on its floor, 
which was also so covered with the armorial bearings 
of dead and gone Jonkers and Mynheers carved in 
such high relief that walking over them was de¬ 
cidedly unpleasant. 

Of course I was shown the staircase in the town 
hall, where William the “ Silent ” Prince of Orange 
was assassinated, and the marks on the wall made by 


24 


Only Letters 

the bullet after its trip through that unfortunate 
gentleman, which marks suggested that, for the tak¬ 
ing off of this worthy prince, a part of his “title” 
must have been utilized, as a fair-sized “ mandarino” 
at point blank range, could not have made a larger 
cavity in the wall;—did you notice that you could al¬ 
most thrust your fist into that bullet hole ? 

Of another morning to Leyden, with its venerable 
“varsity,” ancient library, and its wealth of the 
same—nay, of yet more picturesque brick houses than 
I found at Delft and that grand old Town Hall. Do 
you remember how it wandered along the main 
street, with a facade more than wontedly quaint in 
outline, and ornamentation ? and with those large 
tablets of black slate let into its jumble of architec¬ 
tural delights heralding in florid Dutch text, and 
doubtless no less florid hyperbole, the doughty doings 
of erstwhile good and great Leydeners. 

But I must bring this to an ending now, as we 
start in an hour for Amsterdam, whence, of course, 
you will hear from me later. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Amsterdam , August 20th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

Here we are, domiciled in a most com¬ 
fortable, indeed quite elegant, Pension, overlooking 
the Amstel, with an endless procession of boats pass¬ 
ing up and down. 




Only Letters 25 

Yesterday I overheard a compatriot deliver himself 
to a group of obvious “Cookies” as follows: 
“ Wa’al I’ve seen such an awful lot of famous pic¬ 
tures lately, that I'd like to see one gallery full of real 
poor ones, just for a change.” 

Out to Marken, the lot of us, with J. and his wife 
and their two well-bred, and most agreeable boys, in 
one of those lubberly-sloops in which, by reason of 
an utter failure of the wind, we were poled by a 
young man in amazingly baggy tow-trousers, the 
whole distance of six miles over the shoal Zuyder 
Zee. I remember your speaking of the island; did you 
ever see such a cold-blooded, “ gulden-getting,” the¬ 
atrically fixed-up-ness about any'resort, with its bril¬ 
liant hued, persistent populace of presumable and 
presumptuous peasants ? I for one never before saw 
such excessively adhesive children anywhere, north 
of Naples. Do you remember the cottage interiors, 
that cannot be escaped, and which show how they 
certainly do not live indoors, during the “close sea¬ 
son ” for “ tourists ” ? 

While passing through Monnickendam I noticed 
what struck me as the most original and conservative 
bit of Dutchness yet encountered. I refer to many 
sidewalks along its main street being fenced off across 
their entire width, compelling foot passengers to keep 
to the roughly paved, and very narrow roadway, 
which is fully taken up by a “ steam-tram ” when it 
clatters through the village. I’ve had two delightful 
mornings at the Ryk’s Museum, strolling leisurely 
through its large and beautifully arranged collections, 
and reveling in its unique gatherings of “ Old Delft ” 


26 


Only Letters 

and oriental porcelains, and in that glorious company 
of Rembrandts, headed, of course, by the famous 
“Night-Watch," and followed by that marvelous, 
rosy-cheeked old woman in the cap and ruff, and by 
many other gems;—but why “ Baedekerise " ? 

1 do so prize the deliberation of our present travel 
that permits one to actually see what he looks at, and 
eliminates the usual necessity of “doing" so many 
miles of canvasses per hour, that he may “ get 
through," and rush off to other fields with a confused 
Reubo-Rembro-Tenio-Van Dycko incitement to 
mental dyspepsia. Whether merited or not, I have 
long been regarded by the rest of the party as a 
“perfect poke" in the matter of seeing any collec¬ 
tion; but 1 insist upon a wide difference between 
looking at things and “seeing" them, and on that 
rock “ split we." 

On Wednesday we set our faces Berlin-ward, 
where we are due about September ist, breaking a 
long and decidedly dull run by stops at Hanover, and 
probably other intervening points of interest. 

I saw a droll bit of American self-assertion at the 
cheerless, and rather shabby palace, where the young 
and enthusiastically beloved Queen “ stops " when in 
town. After being shown the throne upon which 
Wilhelmina sits, beside her now “has-been" ma, I 
turned and noticed at the other end of the long 
saloon, and directly facing the throne itself, a large, 
gaunt, ugly American stove, bearing this legend in 
huge nickel-plated letters: “Crown Jewel." Fancy 
sitting on one’s throne and, peradventure, actually 
wearing the “real things," and gazing upon a cast- 


Only Letters 27 

iron “crown-jewel,” made in Detroit, Mich., at say 
four cents per pound! Possibly, however, this emi¬ 
nently sensible little monarch may have discovered 
that, when it comes to a royal case of “cold feet,” 
no begemmed diadem is “in it,” with a “Yankee 
stove ” as a “ sovereign remedy.” 

Leaving the palace, E. and I crossed one of the 
many bridges and turned into the Jewish quarter for 
one of those disreputable rambles we both so delight 
in. About a tenth of the population of Amsterdam 
is Jewish, mainly Portuguese, and is practically con¬ 
fined to the oldest part of the city, where they live in 
a manner akin to that of the accursed beast. Such 
sights, and sounds, and scents, wafted from the nar¬ 
row courts into the scarcely wider streets, fairly 
thronged with people! Underfoot, potato peelings, 
blase lettuce leaves, cast onion skins, fish heads, with 
refuse and rubbish in general, quite beyond the cata¬ 
loguing, demand circumspect walking; and beneath 
this filthy flotsam, mud, and the roughest of rough 
pavements. The unsavory human tide that ebbed 
and flowed along those grimy streets was equally re¬ 
markable with its strongly emphasized racial pecul¬ 
iarities. Here and there a thoroughly oriental face, 
an occasional strikingly handsome woman, and a 
sprinkling of grand old men, distinctly Abrahamic. 

We came upon a unique market, wherein was be¬ 
ing offered goods of every conceivable character (bar 
obviously good for something), all spread out upon 
the mud-coated pavement, or gathered into frowsy 
heaps around the few despondent trees that lined the 
dingy little square. It was astonishing to see the 


28 


Only Letters 

lively trading that went on over such arrant rubbish 
in wood and metal stuffs, leather, pottery—indeed in 
what not; but the constant turnings and over-turn¬ 
ings of those bedraggled heaps, and the babel of 
chaffering in Portugo-Hebraic-Dutch, plus an infinity 
of deprecatory shrugs and palm-spreading, showed 
clearly that the “lost tribesmen” were finding bar¬ 
gains galore. Despite its unsavory setting, our stroll 
was most interesting, with its succession of curious 
and amusing pictures,—all the more so, by reason of 
its contrast with the excessive cleanliness of the gen¬ 
tile quarters. Our friend J. (“ to the manor-born ”), 
insists that the much-vaunted Holland cleanliness is 
vastly more a matter of sentiment than of soap, and 
that they are, in fact, a very dirty folk in many direc¬ 
tions, but never indoors. Our delightful pension is 
the acme of cleanliness, born of incessant scourings 
and dustings, of beatings, and rubbings, and shak¬ 
ings, and broomings—indeed of every possible form 
of onslought upon the realms of dirt that these seem¬ 
ingly never-idle servants can devise. 

As I never willingly miss looking up a Zoo, I spent 
the drizzling end of a very damp forenoon at the ad¬ 
mirable one here. You doubtless recall the beautiful 
park-like grounds, and possibly the unusually fine 
collection of birds. I never saw so many rare varie¬ 
ties together, and I also greatly enjoyed the fine 
aquarium, which fairly offset the somewhat sparse 
collection of important animals. 

We all dined last evening with our good friend, J., 
at his pleasant canal-beset home in Haarlem, after be¬ 
ing driven through the beautiful suburbs of that ven- 


29 


Only Letters 

erable city, with its constant succession of fine villas, 
and its full quota of that peaceful calm that seems in¬ 
digenous to this goodly land. We stopped for after¬ 
noon tea at a very '‘swell” cafe in a park, with an 
elusive name—(a mere rosary of impossible conso¬ 
nants, however), where we “moistened our clay” 
with the “cup that cheers,” while Jupiter Pluvius 
outside provided a greatly needed fluid refreshment 
for “ Mother Earth.” 

We had a delightful visit to the J.’s, being received 
most hospitably by the madam, who, fortunately, 
speaks English well, and we returned to Amsterdam 
quite late, with a still further appreciation of these 
kindly, warm-hearted people. 

But it grows late, and I must bring this to an end, 
and to bed, with a long, dull ride impending for the 
morrow. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Hildesheim , August 23d, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

We left Holland, and its kindly, cheer¬ 
ful folk, with sincere regrets and, through the hours of 
a long, bright summer day, we roll with a tedious de¬ 
liberation across a country dull with the sameness of 
a flat, well-cultivated region, lacking aught to dis¬ 
tract one from the smug smiling of its obvious pros¬ 
perity. 

In the early evening we reached Hanover, where 




30 


Only Letters 

next morning, amid the evidences of much commer¬ 
cial activity, we found a noble old Rathaus, a few fine 
medieval houses, with a sprinkling of mediocre stat¬ 
ues of various narrow-gauge defunctions. After a 
drive through the park, along the famous avenue of 
limes, and a glimpse of the ugly palace of the Guelphs, 
and of the yet homelier home of divers “ Georges,” 
notably Numbers I, II, V, we took a train that set us 
down while yet the day was young, at Hildesheim, 
“and thereby hangs a tale” delightful. 

This quaint old city, dating back to the beginning of 
the ninth century, has so far escaped, eluded, or fought- 
off, the iconoclastic restorer, to an extent that I did 
not suppose was a possibility of this pseudo-rehabil¬ 
itating era. We first wandered over the undulating 
tile-floor of the dim, cool aisles of the venerable Ro¬ 
manesque Cathedral, built in 1055, with its ponderous 
oaken doors, and enormous circular chandelier of 
bronze, reproducing the battlemented walls of an 
ancient city. Above, the huge, time-blackened tim¬ 
bers of its massive framing were a bewildering maze 
of rich geometric carving. A narrow side door gave 
access to the little cloisters, two stories high, where, 
among a nondescript gathering of venerable sculp¬ 
tures, a host of curiously wrought stones marked the 
sepulture of some who had lain there seven hundred 
years. On one wall was spread a vast rose tree (ex- 
“bush”), said to be (“sub rosa,” doubtless), eight 
hundred years old, the which claim, for the perpetu¬ 
ation of its sweetness, were best taken “ cum grano 
salis,” I trow. 

Unpestered for once, by that bane of peaceful in- 


3i 


Only Letters 

vestigation, that uncherished antidote for personally 
conducted, inquisitorial enjoyment unalloyed,—the 
local guide, we wandered at will through the vener¬ 
able pile, and then from its “dim religious light ” out 
into the warm, bright summer afternoon, and, in a few 
moments, came upon the least “ tampered "-with 
and best preserved collection of medieval buildings 
in Europe. We found numbers of winding streets, 
lined on either side with unbroken rows of splendid 
examples of the florid domestic architecture of the late 
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with a wealth 
of ornamentation on their oaken fronts that seemed 
to fairly beggar the dual possibilities of the sacred 
and grotesque. 

In some of these streets the overhanging upper 
stories reduced the visible sky-line to a narrow strip 
of blue, while under foot the original pavement of 
small, round cobbles, stretched, without sidewalks, 
to the massive oak lintels on either hand, with a 
shallow “ kennel ” running down the centre to repre¬ 
sent the highest development of the sanitation of 
those early days. 

For the most part, quite devoid of paint, but with 
the peculiar mellowing that calls for centuries, and 
stippled by storm and sunshine to a delightful blend¬ 
ing of soft browns with silver grays, the massive 
oaken fronts of these noble houses were delightful. 
Small windows,—some with heavy oaken shutters 
swinging on quaint, floriated hinges, but usually 
shutterless, a few with the ancient green, bull’s-eye 
panes,—still intact, were set in walls of which, in 
many instances, every available square foot was or- 


32 


Only Letters 

namented with carving in some form. Above the 
doorway, with its blackened jams, fairly burnished 
by the rub incessant, of generations of ingress and 
egress, Biblical quotations with dates (I recall 1503, 
1507), in a maze of florid text, were frequent, while 
each projecting beam-end now prayed as a saint, 
scowled as a demon, or handed down to posterity 
the “ counterfeit presentiment ” of its one-time 
owner. 

f Some fronts were wholly given over to wonder¬ 
fully involved geometric motifs, with floriated scrolls 
and mottoes. In many instances the cardinal virtues 
were portrayed in a series of cartoons, with a free¬ 
dom from the restraints of art conventions that was 
altogether refreshing in its absolute sincerity. Other 
houses were covered from sill to cornice with 
Scriptural scenes, in many of which a sought solem¬ 
nity, was lost in the quite unintentionally preposter¬ 
ous. For example : A Herculean-Sampson stagger¬ 
ing under the presumable gates of an implied Gaza, 
the gates so diminutive, as to suggest nothing so 
much as a couple of “waffles.” The same hero 
yielding his strenuous locks to a pair of sheep shears, 
quite his equal in stature, Noah and family about to 
embark, in a structure far too small to accommodate 
even Mr. and Mrs. “ Elphas-Indicus,” who have ar¬ 
rived to take passage, and who fairly towered above 
it. A perfectly unperturbed Jonah, being “cast 
forth,” from a seemingly full-length aureole of band¬ 
saws, etc., etc. 

We saunter up and down these almost deserted, 
and wholly delightful streets of the old town, until 


33 


Only Letters 

the sinking sun reminds us that even German trains 
start some time—(not necessarily train time), and can 
even be missed, by unreasoning enthusiasm. 

We take a stroll, around the ivy-grown ramparts, 
and a “ cup of tea" in a thoroughly commonplace 
cafe on the trite High Street, and then “ book” for 
Brunswick, where you will now suppose us to be, 
and sound asleep, after an unusually full day; so 
“Exeunt Omnes,”—Curtain!! 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Berlin, August 2jth, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

We enjoyed in Brunswick a most re¬ 
munerative half-day hiatus, and, in a stroll through 
its pleasant streets, found among the commonplace 
buildings, of the average modern German town, not 
a few really fine survivals of its former state. The 
Alstadt Rathaus is a noble specimen of the florid 
Gothic, commenced in 1250, and “built at” for two 
centuries to a “ finish ” in 1468, the culmination quite 
reconciling one to such constructive deliberation. 
Several fine churches, rich in curious heraldic monu¬ 
ments, and superb old glass, a number of ornate 
houses, covered with carvings like those of 
Hildesheim, but quite lacking the impressive con¬ 
tinuity of that unique city. 

Here these survivals were isolated, with an inter¬ 
mediate touching of elbows, with commonplace 




34 


Only Letters 

shops and dwellings, among the which, however, 
they shone like “ a good deed in a naughty world.” 

Once more to the rails for another prolonged creep 
across flat, well-tilled, uninteresting Brandenburg, 
until, in the early twilight, stretches of arid yellow 
sand, with sparse forests of spindling pines, told of 
our near approach to Berlin, and anon we roll into 
the Capitol of William Hohenzollern 11 , King and 
Kaiser, by the Grace of God, and supreme, self-sus¬ 
pected, know-it-all, off his own “bat/’ 

As we entered the suburbs I took a whisk out of my 
bag, and, after dusting my clothes, which were white 
with pulverized Prussia, I handed it to a Russian who 
sat next to me. He smiled, took it, and, removing 
his cap, proceeded to beat his shock of thick black hair 
with it, after which he replaced the said cap, bowed 
courteously, and returned it to me. 

After one of those somewhat trying episodes inci¬ 
dent to reestablishing relations with luggage, etc., 
we drove to No. 49 Wilhelm Strasse and established 
ourselves in the exceptionally homelike English 
Pension of Madam G., where we found, and en¬ 
joyed a deal of genuine, unpretentious comfort in the 
large, roomy house, but a few steps from the gay and 
beautiful Leipziger Strasse. 

I was last here in ’73; and, in those twenty-seven 
intervening years, a practically new Berlin has been 
created by the boy who, of a morning, constantly 
rode past our hotel beside his father, Unser Fritz, and 
his grandfather, William I,—a regular “ tit-tat-toe ” 
of Emperors, present and prospective. The famous 
“ Unter-den-Linden ” has vastly changed, the 


35 


Only Letters 

“ Unter," i. e., its shops, hotels, and other buildings, 
being vastly “ Unterer " than in ’73; but in the “ den 
Linden" end, a noticeable falling off, as many of its 
noble old trees that then actually shaded this impos¬ 
ing avenue, have vanished, and been replaced with 
smaller trees of an evidently quite recent replanting. 

The Emperor certainly is, a “ sure-enough " won¬ 
der, and, like the chosen beverage of his fatherland, 
seems to fairly overflow the measure of his success 
and to run down its sides from a sheer lack of stow¬ 
age room for the suds of his self-sufficiency. His 
correcting, adjusting, and, it must be admitted, 
usually bettering hand, is seen everywhere;—in clean 
streets, the best and cheapest cab system in Europe, 
marvels of police and sanitary appliances, and ad¬ 
ministration, indeed in all that constitutes a high 
standard of municipal government. 

The attractions of this city have ever been seen by 
me, as it were, “in a glass darkly," despite these 
material advantages, plus the new features that have 
been added of late years, and I regard Berlin, as 
easily the dullest of the greater European cities. 

Like Napoleon III, William has torn down whole 
districts, and given the New Berlin, for acres of old, 
shabby houses, splendid new streets, and squares, 
broad avenues, parks, fountains, etc., etc. One of 
the finest things he has given the city is the justly 
famous Sieges Allee,— i. e., Avenue of Victory in the 
Thiergarten—a broad avenue, on either side of which 
are superb statues in marble of the famous makers 
of German history, her Knights and Warriors, States¬ 
men, Savants, Clergymen, etc. All of these statues 


36 Only Letters 

are by famous sculptors, and are, as a rule, splendid 
works of art, but I noticed, and with intense indig¬ 
nation, that some vandals had actually chipped off 
several noses, and otherwise mutilated some of the 
most beautiful faces. What sort of a creature can do 
such things ? 

The overwhelming preponderance of the army is 
never lost sight of for a moment here; troops every¬ 
where, and elegantly dressed officers at every turn 
stroll along the streets with clanking sabres, and the 
very ozone seems freighted with the microbes of 
military readiness for war. Colonel L., of our army, 
told me that Germany can call out, and completely 
equip in six weeks, more than two millions of men, 
and that her total fighting strength closely approxi¬ 
mates four millions. 

Our parlor overlooks the War Office, and I never 
see the white flag on its tall staff opposite our win¬ 
dows, with the familiar black eagle of Prussia, with¬ 
out being struck by its double resemblance to a 
“ spring chicken,” as this sombre specimen of heral¬ 
dic poultry is “spread out ” precisely as if ready for 
a “baptism of fire” and in momentary expectation 
of a “ broil.” 

The thirst for uniforms and gold lace seems un¬ 
quenchable, from those gold-mounted porters, who 
take life easy and tips fluently, down to the very 
“ hoe-en-Zollerns and broom-en-ZoIlerns,” that so 
perfectly groom these splendid streets; all wear 
medals of some sort, the latter possibly as K. G.’s— 
(Knights of the Gutter ?). 

We are doing the “stock sights” leisurely, as 


Only Letters 37 

we have ample time, and there are many, and fine 
collections, and museums to repay repeated visits. 

In pictures, the Berlin collections are easily sur¬ 
passed by various other galleries, but the number of 
really great works scattered through the several 
schools is considerable, notably some splendid 
Durers and Holbeins, and two or three great Jan Van 
Eycks. The gathering of antiquities from Egypt, 
Assyria, Persia, Greece, etc., is magnificent, giving 
evidence, by its extent and richness, of a learned, 
discriminating spoliation, second only to England’s 
adhesiveness to desirable monuments of antiquity, 
and to the flexibility of the collective virtues, as 
found in the British Museum. 

The Museum of Armor is my especial delight and 
constant resource (as are all gatherings of weaponry), 
but this is unquestionably the finest in the world, and 
here I spend hours,—especially in the section devoted 
to the arts-homicidal, antedating the use of gun¬ 
powder. 

Hark! there goes the clock, striking a round dozen, 
and the lamp and scribe both begin to flicker; so I 
will close this and retire. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Berlin , September 4th , 1900. 

My dear M-: 

On Saturday last,—long before it was 
fully light, I was aroused by the rhythmic thud, 
thud, thud, of marching feet, and the intermittent 




38 Only Letters 

“snarling” of those little brass “whippet” drums 
of the German line, with an occasional bugle call, 
and that peculiar rumble, that always means artillery. 

The troops were en route to the Tempelhofer field 
for the famous Autumnal Review, and later the process 
of imbibing the regulation, infusion of chicory was 
constantly interspersed with trips to the window, as 
some band tuned up, while passing the War Office. 

immediately after breakfast, we all started in a 
couple of landaus for the field, where such reviews 
have been held twice a year since 1721. Our carriage 
was one, of at least a thousand that, by reason of a 
special ticket, was admitted to a part of the vast 
plain set apart for “Carriage Company.” Quickly 
and without confusion we were placed by mounted 
police; and, after having taken our allotted position in 
the second, of four ranks of vehicles, we looked 
abroad upon a wonderful spectacle. 

The day was perfection, clear and mild, with a 
gentle breeze sweeping over the plain,—perhaps a 
mile long, and almost as wide, covered with short, 
coarse turf, which prevented the dust from arising 
and obscuring the view. Troops of all arms were 
pouring in from every side, while a host of officers 
of high rank, in uniforms as “ full ” as they could be 
“ filled ” (this often in a double sense), were gallop¬ 
ing in every direction. 

In a few moments a general commotion, with sub¬ 
dued shouts, announced the arrival of the ever punc¬ 
tual Kaiser, accompanied by the Empress, the Crown 
Prince, and a dazzling staff, including many for¬ 
eign officers present by special invitation, among 


39 


Only Letters 

whom our own Colonel L., in his plain chapeau, 
modest blue, and sparse gold, riding between two 
great, gleaming Cuirassiers, looked quite as much the 
soldier and man, as anything in competition. 

Wheeling into line for the review, the Royal party 
took up a position not one hundred feet to our left, 
with but a single row of intervening carriages. Di¬ 
rectly in front, on a tall sorrel, sat the Kaiser, in the 
uniform of a General of Infantry, holding a marshal’s 
baton in his right hand, and with the front of “ him ” 
a sporadic case of “medallic” leprosy, so covered 
was he with gold and jeweled orders—in fact one 
might suppose that this, our “ Imperator,” had been 
“taking orders ” from every sovereign on earth, who 
had “ trade marks ” to “ swap.” On his either hand 
sat a General, and perhaps ten feet to his right, the 
Empress took her place, riding a splendid black hun¬ 
ter with white socks, and dressed in a uniform as 
follows: A long riding habit of heavy white cloth, 
trimmed with a narrow cord of magenta, white 
gauntlets on her hands, and across her breast a broad 
ribbon of orange, watered silk ribbon, on which were 
several orders, ending with a huge bow at the hip, 
and held in place by a narrow belt of white cloth. 
On her head she wore a three-cornered cocked hat 
of black, trimmed with narrow silver lace, and with 
a small silver aigrette, and little stiff, brush-like, white 
plume. 

And now the pageant commences, and the troops, 
which have been pouring in continuously, fall silently 
into their places, like the bits of machinery they are. 
When the formation was complete, as it speedily 


40 


Only Letters 

was, from the centre of the vast field a large body of 
men was seen to disintegrate, and scatter in every di¬ 
rection in groups of six. These were the regimental 
color-bearers, with their guards of four men each. 
As soon as each command had received its colors, 
there was a moment of silence, and then the air rang 
with stentorian commands, and an immense band, 
opportunely stationed over against ns, and William 
burst into a stirring march, and the whole thirty- 
three thousand men moved forward. 

1 cannot, of course, do justice to that scene, as, 
from out an azure sky, an unclouded autumn sun 
shone full on that orderly, but tumultuous sea of 
flashing metal, with its billows of dazzling colors, 
and waving plumes, reaching to the horizon; ’twas 
simply overwhelming in its splendor. 

First came the infantry of the line, marching in 
close order with a front of one hundred men, and in 
faultless alignment, each rifle in a whole command 
carried precisely like every other. By reason of the 
close formation, the sun shining on the concentrated 
masses of metal, suggested a lake heaving at regular 
intervals, as the men swayed with the automatic 
rhythm of their perfect marching. 

As each regiment came near the Royal Group, the 
lines broke into the preposterous “salute," or in 
common parlance, the “goose step," produced by 
using the hip joint only, maintaining a perfectly 
rigid knee—very difficult to do well, exceedingly 
fatiguing, and, in its perfection, ugly to the limit. 
These men in heavy marching order (bar ammuni¬ 
tion), could not stand it for more than about one 


4i 


Only Letters 

hundred feet, as I noticed. As each command passed 
the Kaiser, its field officers, i. e., Colonel, Lieutenant- 
Colonel, and two Majors, wheeled to the right and 
fell in behind the reviewing party, and thus each 
moment that grove of waving plumes, and sea of 
glitter, received fresh influents. 

Next came the grenadiers, the Crown Prince, a 
captain (not yet nineteen), leading his company, and 
wearing those tall, sugar-loaf caps, so dear to the 
heart of the Great Frederick. Then came Yagers, 
i. e. y riflemen, engineers, and various other foot, and 
then, with a fanfare of trumpets, fairly deafening, 
along poured the splendid Crack Calvary Corps— 
cuirassiers in their dazzling, but long since utterly 
futile cuirasses; some with helmets, bearing the old- 
time horse tails. Splendid showy Uhlans, plumed 
Hussars, a mass of embroidery and gay colors, with 
that picturesque, and doubtless troublesome jacket— 
never actually worn, but always seemingly about to 
drop off—which it never really does. Squadrons of 
Lancers, with great flights of those little guidons, 
red and white, or black and white, all a-twinkle in 
the breeze from their lance heads. Then came chas¬ 
seurs, mounted infantry, and various minor corps— 
a splendid spectacle truly, bipedal and quadrupedal 
alike, with its infinite variety of uniforms, splendid 
trappings—in brief, such an amazing “dressing to 
kill ” (in a double sense) as I never expected to see. 

After seeming miles of horse had passed, and 
with a rumble that fairly shook the earth, came 
masses of the very latest productions of Krupp in the 
line of wholesale “ homiciders,” i. e ., horse and field 


42 


Only Letters 

artillery, about ten guns abreast, with carriages and 
limbers of a bright, cheerful blue (invisible, this 
at any considerable distance); the guns of a dull 
bronze, and the alignment in its perfection, a marvel 
of the scientific menage of the six-horse teams. 

Of course all things come to an end some time 
(even letters, eh ?), and at length a narrow strip of 
bare ground at the extreme verge of the Tempel- 
hofer plain grows rapidly wider and wider, and anon 
the “ rear is brought up ” and carried by, and at once 
the Empress, who has been sitting erect “ like a man ” 
through it all, gallops off, followed by an equerry, 
and, in a few moments, by the Emperor and staff; 
the streams of splendid officers melt away, and the 
great pageant closes with the perfectly orderly and 
systematic dissolution of the hack corps, which, 
guided by the most efficient mounted police in 
Europe, was soon scattered through the numerous 
wide streets, easily accessible from the review field. 

You may, and very naturally too, conclude that 
such a sight as this was quite.enough for any one 
day; but not so; I’ll tell you later how the day ac¬ 
tually ended for us. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Berlin , September ioth, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

In my last, we had just returned from the 
grand review, and, after dinner, having been so fortu¬ 
nate as to secure tickets, we all went up to the Old 




43 


Only Letters 

Palace on Unter den Linden for a concert, given by the 
Kaiser on such occasions, following a state dinner, to 
which his staff, all visiting officers, etc., are bidden. 
After dinner a really grand concert is given in the large* 
open square, before the Schloss, by a combination of 
all of the crack bands assembled for the review. On 
this occasion, there were about twenty full bands, be¬ 
sides drums andfifes,to thenumberoftwelve hundred. 

Our tickets admitted us to the terrace directly in front 
of the palace, from which position all that transpires 
may be seen and heard to the best possible advantage. 
We were permitted to pass through the courtyard of 
the palace by a back entrance, and, without any 
crowding or hurry, we walked out upon the broad ter¬ 
race and took our position. About 8:30 the massed 
bands, escorted by hundreds of torch-bearers, came 
marching up the avenue and formed around a sort of 
pulpit erected for the leader. 

The ever “up-to-date" William feedeth betimes, 
—in this instance at six o'clock; and, just as this 
melodious multitude swarmed into the square, His 
Majesty stepped out upon a small balcony on the 
second floor, and took up a position leaning against 
the window casing, where he stood with scarcely a 
movement for more than an hour. As soon as the 
Kaiser was posed and in focus, the banded bandits 
burst into a stirring march, and then for the next two 
hours, we had bands alone, drums and fifes; once 
drums alone, eight hundred of them,—a seeming 
thunder-storm set to music; then drums and trum¬ 
pets, and once a fanfare of perhaps two hundred 
trumpets only; this was magnificent. 


44 


Only Letters 

None of the military music on this side, equals our 
best in its spirit and “go”; there is too much repeti¬ 
tion and sameness about it, and the tremendous hit 
made by Sousa is easily accounted for. 

The Empress, fairly blazing with diamonds, and, 
with a small crown on her graceful head, soon joined 
“it” at the window, and the Crown Prince was 
constantly coming and going, so that we, who were 
not more than one hundred feet from the royal party, 
could readily share the proverbial “cat’s” preroga¬ 
tive. 

Finally the united bands, with a tremendous vol¬ 
ume, struck up “ God Save ‘ Grandma ’ ”—an old air 
in Germany twenty years before England “ National- 
anthemed ” it. 

The square, courtyard, terraces, and indeed every 
coign of vantage swarmed with officers of every grade, 
from Lieutenants-General, to general Lieutenants, 
all, of course, “togged-out” in their “glad-rags”; 
and, as the first notes were heard, every man of them 
wheeled on his heel, faced the Emperor and saluted, 
upon which the crowd broke into cheers and 
“hochs,” amid which the bands marched off; the 
great square soon emptied, and we set our faces 
homeward—all of us, intent on one of the very best 
unpatented devices I know of. 

Apropos of the Crown Prince, being now past 
eighteen, he is of age (Royalty ripens extra early), 
and has been given a palace of his own to live in, 
with a separate retinue of servants, personal staff, 
stables, etc., etc.; in fact, he has permanently cast 
off the apron strings of the august Augusta, and no 


45 


Only Letters 

longer “Prince’s it at the old stand.” He is, I un¬ 
derstand, a rather nice boy, but quite a Hohenzollern 
all the same. 

There goes the clock striking its most, the lamp 
flickers its premonition, and my paper has run out, 
so stop this I should—nay, must, forsooth. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Berlin , September ijth , 1900. 

My dear M-: 

We have now been here more than 
three weeks, and feel quite at home in the well-or¬ 
dered monotony of this very new city, whence every 
shred of antiquity has vanished before the relentless 
sweep of Wm. H.'s broom, the oldest survivals being 
but comparatively modern structures “out at el¬ 
bows.” One of the most concrete elements of dul- 
ness, is the inordinate length of the cross-town 
blocks—often equal to three of our longest, without 
any intersecting street; no shops to break the mo¬ 
notony; and when, as it often happens, one side of 
a street is all blank garden, or courtyard walls, and 
the other side an unbroken stretch of governmental 
buildings, or the closed palaces of absentee magnates, 
walking such long stretches of unmitigated dulness 
is downright drudgery. 

On Sunday to the English Church, where we found 
the regulation continental incumbent, i. e., clergy¬ 
man out of “repair” (such men always “repair” to 



46 Only Letters 

the continent), to take, and, dare I say, “give ’ a 
needed rest? In this instance I could not exactly 
pity his unshepherded “flock,” if he had one. After 
praying for everything crowned, and for our own 
great uncrowned ruler, he announced his text—pos¬ 
sibly from Romans tenth, and then for forty minutes 
preached hard from “German’sfirst.” His discourse 
being limited to a perfervid laudation of the Kaiser, 
who, by the way, also preaches on occasions—in 
fact, what does he not do, this Royal “John of di¬ 
versified handicrafts ” ? 

There is a very remarkable Ethnological Museum 
just around the corner from us, where I spend many 
absorbingly interested hours, as indeed I do in the 
Royal Gallery, where I constantly drop in to see over 
and again, a few special favorite Holbeins, Rysdaels, 
and Van-Eycks. 

In one of the class-rooms the other day, I lifted a 
little faded green curtain, hanging over a small, 
dingy, gilt frame, and, for the first time, looked into 
the sad, sweet, dreamy eyes of the famous Polish 
Countess, Potocka,—a pastel, greatly faded, but an 
utterly and unreservedly charming vision of sweet¬ 
ness. 

I think I may have mentioned before, that, as sev¬ 
enty-five per centum of our party is quite opposed 
to promiscuous and general sight-seeing, most morn¬ 
ings I prowl alone; but after lunch we muster as a 
total, and adjourn for poor coffee and usually good 
music (and tolerable cakes), to some one of many 
cafes in the suburban parks and gardens. 

This certainly is a land where the amusing and 


47 


Only Letters 

vexatious coalesce, and where “honors are easy” 
between gold lace and red tape in the gentle art of 
wasting one’s time without reason. 

From Banker to Kelner all take it easy, are delib¬ 
erate to the exasperating point and lethargy is sim¬ 
ply chronic. While the German soldier, in his re¬ 
dundant plenitude, from the new conscript to the 
field marshal is the acme of neatness—in the case of 
officers, is a thing of surpassing elegance; bar those 
unseemly facial-“ seams ” relics of idiotic university 
“scraps,” the German citizen is very badly done. 
With his hair cut on shoe-brush lines, a bad hat, 
gaping collar, encircled with a made-up tie, often a 
chromatic sin, his long-waisted pod of a coat, and 
flabby enemic trousers, flaring out over brutally ugly 
shoes—I think he is the worst dressed man I can re¬ 
call on this side. What puzzles me most is the fact 
that, by some mysterious psychic alchemy, they 
make those splendid officers out of these same shock¬ 
ing “cits.” Well, we know, that even the “worm 
will turn,”—some turning to butterflies, as in this 
case. 

To Potsdam last week, and “did” the regular 
“stock sights,” with the usual bespattering of mis- 
informative incoherence from the guide, which, how¬ 
ever nuisance that it is, could not seriously mar the 
beauties of that historic spot. 

Yesterday we returned there, and, shunning the 
ranks of the never-absent gang of tourists, we en¬ 
tered the grounds of Sans Souci by a small side path, 
and then wandered at will and quite alone for exquis¬ 
ite miles. The Great Frederick certainly was a 


48 Only Letters 

strange hodge-podge of redoubtable warrior, man of 
letters, patron of Arts, and thoroughgoing domestic 
tyrant; but if ever a man was possessed of a vivid 
sense, of the beautiful and appropriate, he certainly 
made good his “calling and election,” when he con¬ 
ceived and created Sans Sonci Park. 

Strolling as we did, without plan or premeditation, 
we constantly encountered amid the grand old trees 
charming vistas, lovely little unsuspected lakes, and 
bits of water, Greek temples, Roman buildings, and 
the perfection of turf and floriculture, with statuary 
past the counting. Of the latter, most of it might 
well be quite “Sans Souci ” on the score of apparel, 
as they had little to dread, even from a “reign” as 
long as that of their great patron and placer. I never 
was in a pleasure ground with more of the happily 
blended delights of art and nature than this park, and 
I could easily devote a week to its entire exploitation. 

Colonel L., just back from the great army manoeu¬ 
vres held near Stettin, told me, that there were present 
by invitation forty naval officers, of whom thirty-nine 
fell off of their horses. Possibly the one shining ex¬ 
ception may have been a connection of our friend, 
“Captain Jenks,” late of the “Maritime Horse.” It 
must have been a droll sight to see men accustomed 
to “riding out a gale,” and who could laugh at the 
“bucking” of the “Bay” of Biscay, so prone to 
part with their equine-imity ? 

Our future plans are quite ambitious, including a 
run down to Dresden for a few days, then a return 
here for the gathering of effects, after which E. and I 
go to Copenhagen and Stockholm, and from the latter 


Only Letters 49 

point, cross the Baltic, to St. Petersburg, where we 
will join the others, who go there by rail direct. 

Once more midnight is tolling, lamp flickering in 
protest, and I, really too weary to write longer, so 
adieu. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Berlin , September 21st, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

This morning, the lot of us, to the fine 
Reichstag (House of Parliament), on an imposing 
site, chaste and elegant in its appointments, well 
lighted in its every room—in short, an admirable 
illustration of supreme fitness. It cost, roundly, five 
and one-half of our millions, and is, as stated, so en¬ 
tirely what it should be, that, when I recalled a cer¬ 
tain apparently never-to-be finished marble monstros¬ 
ity,—“a lion in the path of” our two chief “ways,” 
still as unblushingly absorbent as ever, after having 
swallowed—I don’t recall just how many millions be¬ 
yond twenty—I was not altogether proud of certain 
phases of our political system. 

Last week we all went down to Dresden for three 
days—quite too short a visit to satisfactorily renew 
recollections of its manifold treasures. I had quite 
forgotten their extent and actual splendors across that 
wide gap of twenty-seven years. Of course we went 
to the Green Vaults, so called, because all of the 
rooms are red, blue, yellow (any color save as per 




50 Only Letters 

title), to come away surfeited with its gorgeous rub¬ 
bish. It is a really preposterous gathering where, 
amid a mere leaven of enjoyable art-works, one sees 
a mass of those costly gem bespattered gold follies 
of Augustus the “Strong," and his scarcely less 
rancid successors. How they did make “ ducks and 
drakes," to be sure, of the hard-earned money of 
their toiling subjects to build these brilliant, worthless 
baubles. 

Out for the day to Meissen, with its famous porce¬ 
lain factories, where those simpering shepherdesses, 
mincing beaux, and glossy cupids are turned out by 
the ton. 

On the lofty terrace of the fine old Castle we were 
fairly girt round by a splendid panorama of Saxon- 
Switzerland, with a close-at-hand view of toothsome 
trout and admirable beer that, by common consent, 
left little to be desired along the line of creature com¬ 
forts and collective enjoyment. 

Back to Berlin again, for the packing demanded by 
another general flitting, “C," with the other two, go¬ 
ing direct to St. Petersburg—a thirty-six hour run in 
a truly splendid train of thoroughly up-to-date sleep¬ 
ers, fine dining-car, etc. The same day E. and I 
started northwest for Lubec, the famous old Free City 
on the Trave, twelve miles from the Baltic, which we 
found full to overflowing of delightful old bits. 

Our first “find" was the Holstenthor, a wonderful 
old city gate, flanked by two huge, circular battle- 
mented towers, now partly submerged by a change 
of the street grade. These time-gnawed towers were 
capped with tall, conical roofs, around which clouds 


Only Letters 51 

of Jackdaws incessantly wheel and croak. I wish we 
had Jackdaws, but then we have no “ ancient tow¬ 
ers ” for them to “ wheel around ” and nest in, and no 
self-respecting “J. D.” would so much as look at any 
“new” building, let alone “daw” with it. 

We also found a splendid Rath-house, numerous 
old churches, and quaint houses past the tell¬ 
ing. 

Lubec is remarkable for, and, indeed, if I mistake 
not, stands alone in one peculiar phase of architec¬ 
ture. I allude to its Gothic buildings, built exclusively 
of a jet black brick, with a positively dazzling gloss, 
and laid in a snowy-white mortar, that time so far, 
quite fails to discolor. It is astonishing to see the 
most ornate and elaborate details of purely Gothic 
forms, produced exclusively with bricks, in place of 
the elsewhere universal stone. Elaborately finished 
columns, single and clustered, charming arches, 
deeply groined ceilings, fan traceries, lancet windows, 
filled with mullions and delicate traceries—all in this 
gleaming black-brick work. 

Of course, in work of this character, specially 
moulded bricks of every conceivable shape and size 
were used, and the manner of their fitting and laying 
was an amazing exhibition of clever handicraft, and 
one that I vastly enjoyed. 

When lunch time came around, we sought out the 
old “Shipfull” Guild House of the “Worshipful” 
Guild of Shipmasters, or, as they say here, the 
“Schiffergesellschaft ” ! with its general assembly 
room a veritable cavern of wonders in the darkness 
of time, and grime, and of the soot and smoke from 


52 Only Letters 

the fires that have glowed for the purveying of 
homely cheer in a series of supplemental caverns, or 
alcoves, since 1636. 

From the huge black, web-fringed, oaken beams of 
the lofty ceiling hung countless models of famous 
ships, once sailed by former “ Guild-men,” who have 
long since doffed queue and frock, jack-boots, and 
cutlass, high words and deep draughts, and one and 
all have cleared for the “locker” of the insatiate 
“Davy.” Running lengthwise of the spacious hall, 
were narrow tables of a single oaken plank, with 
sprawling legs driven in a l’a butcher’s block, and 
with their tops a mass of curious jack-knife carvings, 
rude initials, foul’d anchors, hearts entwined, crude 
lady-loves, etc., and over all the polish and glisten, as 
of enamel, impartable solely by beer drippings well 
rubbed in with the jumper-sleeves of two centuries of 
sodden “tars.” On either side of these tables ran 
narrow benches of a like humble “get,” with their 
tall pew-like ends, rudely carved with imps and an¬ 
gels, saints and sailors, so gaudily painted and gilded 
that they fairly glowed in an all-pervading blackness, 
but feebly wrought upon, by the few and futile be¬ 
grimed windows. 

After a time our accustomed eyes could note the 
quaint and charming ensemble of the place, and inci¬ 
dentally aid us to do justice to the herring-salad, fried 
sausages, potatoes, and black beer, with hunches of 
bread, the sourest and blackest we ever saw. 

Out into the bright autumn sunshine once more, 
we tasted of the famous Lubec “Marzipane,” a sur¬ 
vival of the old English “ March-pane ”—a sort of 


Only Letters 53 

cake made of almonds, sugar, and the whites of 
eggs—amazingly nasty, we thought. 

Then off for one of our cherished, practically aim¬ 
less, but ever remunerative strolls of several miles 
along the crooked, ill-paved streets, with here an an¬ 
cient church, yonder a venerable fountain or statue, 
and constantly recurring medieval houses with lofty 
tiled roofs and rich carvings. We finished our cir¬ 
cuit and came back to the great “ Holstenthor Gate,” 
as the declining sun was pouring its red flames 
through the low portal, like the mouth of some great 
furnace, and, with its massive towers black against 
the horizon, we strolled down to a small, but bustling 
dock, and boarded the little Swedish steamer, Hal- 
land , for Copenhagen. 

We were soon under way, and, winding down 
(perhaps it should be “unwinding” when going 
“ down ” [?]), the narrow, tortuous, traffic-cumbered 
Trave, leave its turgid waters, and, as darkness closes 
in, we find ourselves well out on the Baltic. 

Our boat, a small coaster, crowded and dirty as a 
“pen” forward, was as neat as a “pin” aft, and, 
with appetites whet by the keen Baltic breezes, anon 
we seek the attractive little saloon for an utterly new 
gastronomic experience, peculiar to Scandinavia, 
known as a “smorgasbord.” 

This letter was commenced in Berlin, added to in 
Lubec, and is being completed in the little cabin of 
the H all and; so, in view of its already considerable 
length, I will be merciful and defer details of the 
“smorgasbord” until I next write you. 

As ever yours, F. 


54 


Only Letters 


Copenhagen , October 6th , 1900. 

My dear M-: 

That “ smorgasbord ” impending when 
I closed my last letter is a sort of preliminary “spur’’ 
to the presumably jaded-Norse appetite, universal 
throughout Scandinavia, and is partaken of before 
the actually serious trencher-work of a meal receives 
attention. Our first one was in this wise: pickled 
eels, with jelly, cold ham, and tongue, several 
cheeses, huge radishes, five kinds of sausages, viz.:— 
one good, two fair, one queer, and one richly deserv¬ 
ing a far-too-long-deferred sepulture—phewl ’twas 
truly carrion-ic. Then there was corned beef, sev¬ 
eral sauces, rich and poor, three raw fishes, etc., etc., 
and in the centre of this wilderness of cates, a tall sil¬ 
ver multi-spigoted urn, each tap yielding some one 
of the many potent potations current in these parts. 
When I went below, quite chilled through, the smil¬ 
ing Swedish maiden, who presided at this astonishing 
spread, poured into a tiny glass from a seeming soda 
water bottle a colorless liquid, with the fragrance of 
some unfamiliar herb, the which I promptly swal¬ 
lowed, with results, I may state, that were quite un¬ 
looked for. I never learned the Swedish name of 
that particular form of fluid “sunstroke,” but in ten 
seconds I seemed to have donned about three suits of 
“Jagers,” plus an ulster or two, and could almost 
feel the “ patent ” expire in the leather of my shoes— 
it was so very , very “ cordial.” The swiftly revolv¬ 
ing “smorgasbord ” was now being served in a very 
large, circular apartment, completely surrounded by 



Only Letters 55 

side-boards, the entire outfit running at about two 
hundred revolutions per minute, past an endless chain 
of smiling blue-clad maidens, identical in face, figure, 
and long plaits of yellow hair, with the single lass 
who had “kindled” me. However, “things” 
quickly slowed down, stopped running, grew square, 
and few, buffets melted, and all but one girl van¬ 
ished, and I next took note of the arrival of stewed 
fowl, with a peculiarly delicious sauce, several vege¬ 
tables, other hot meats, and excellent hot fish, a 
toothsome jelly—(like cranberry with an under 
“currant”), and a curious rye bread in thin sheets, 
etc. It certainly was a most astonishing meal to 
have been served in that little cabin from the tiny 
galley wherein it must have been cooked. 

Bright and early next morning we steamed into the 
beautiful harbor of Copenhagen, after an excellent 
breakfast with the pleasant English-speaking captain, 
passing close by the splendid eight thousand ton 
yacht of the Czar, anchored in mid channel, and 
soon, for the first time, press the soil of Scandinavia. 

After seeing our baggage pass quite unexamined 
through the most perfunctory of custom-houses, it was 
loaded on a large barrow and propelled by two big 
rosy-cheeked Danes, who followed us to the Hotel 
Dagmar, where they shocked us by thanking us most 
heartily for the small fee paid them for their services. 

This charming city must have “let” its original 
paving contracts to old “Good Intentions,” so variant 
are the forms of under-foot discomforts; large cob¬ 
bles round, with smaller cobbles “ unround,” with 
here and there a vagrant Belgian block, make streets 


56 Only Letters 

that render walking a weariness alike of the flesh and 
spirit. Many of the older streets have two parallel 
narrow strips of flagging, about fifteen inches wide, 
laid many years back, and strictly reserved for bur¬ 
gomasters, and other “civic quality,” and hence are 
called the “ Burgomaster Stones.” 

Our first morning was given over to a long walk 
around the outer circle of this most charming and at¬ 
tractive city, getting our “bearings,” and in that 
process seeing many old and interesting “ bits ” in 
the way of towers and halls, statues and fountains, 
which we come upon after the delightfully unex¬ 
pected fashion of the desultory rambler. 

After lunch another walk, an Art Museum, and 
later to call upon our very good friends, the L.’s, and 
to renew our pleasant associations had with them 
in Berlin. 

Yesterday we went out to Frederiksborg, a noble 
old castle about an hour from the city, where the 
consecutive Christians and recurrent Frederiks, who 
here replace the no less serial Frederichs and Wil¬ 
helms of Germany, have left behind them in its 
countless rooms a wonderful gathering of historic and 
interesting “junk” of every conceivable character. 

The elaborate decorations of the fine old pile are 
quite past describing short of many pages, more or 
less tinged with “ Baedeker,” so I will not attempt 
it. 

Formerly a strong fortress, it occupies three small 
islands, and its many windows, piercing walls six 
feet thick, command glorious sweeps of hill, dale, 
and forest, with broad stretches of water, sailed by 


57 


Only Letters 

fleets of those ever-befittingly decorative swans, 
gleaming like snowdrifts in the bright autumnal sun¬ 
shine. 

We have both fallen an easy prey to these charm¬ 
ing Danes of both sexes. The men tall, stalwart, 
well-“ set-up ” fellows, with frank, pleasant, ani¬ 
mated faces, of most courteous manners, and in the 
better classes to a man, well dressed. The women, 
as a rule, so tall that even E.’s plenitude of inches 
signally fails to “draw” as a hitherto regarded irre¬ 
sistible “side show”; many with truly noble faces, 
with other some, pretty to a degree, and often along 
distinctly American lines. 

We spend to-morrow here, and then take another 
coaster, touching at various points en route to Stock¬ 
holm, with a lively anticipation of its manifold inter¬ 
ests and attractions. 

We are, however, missing much of the Scandina¬ 
vian life by reason of the fact that summer, with its 
plenitude of out-of-door pleasures is officially past, 
while the winter attractions are yet a long way off, 
so that we are actually in a “hiatus” between those 
two seasons of pronounced attractions. 

But I must stop this now and take E. out for a lit¬ 
tle shopping in the lively and attractive streets. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Stockholm, October 11th , ipoo. 

My dear M-: 

With delightful impressions and recol¬ 
lections of the Danish capital, we took the Eolus for 




58 Only Letters 

this place, touching at several small towns along the 
coast, a feature that adds distinctly to the interest of 
a voyage, with a grand totality of the delightsome. 

Leaving Copenhagen at noon of the 9th, we ran 
across to Malmo, an old historic town (there are no 
new towns in Sweden), which played an important 
part in the past. Found several venerable churches, 
a quaint Rathouse, a bright, charming little park, and, 
but for the sabots’ clank, utterly quiet, flint-paved, 
winding streets, shaded with great lindens. 

Our silver-haired captain, a charming Swede, 
speaking English well, and very proud of the country 
that so interested us, was most courteous, and we 
spent much of our time on the tiny bridge, where he 
entertained us with the legends and folk-lore, history, 
and customs of his fatherland. 

Our next stop was at Karlskrona, the chief naval 
station of Sweden, but quite devoid of interest. 
Thence to Kalmar, another gray, silent little city, 
slumbering behind its ancient moss-covered walls, 
and long drained moat, its piece de resistance—a truly 
grand old castle on a rocky headland silhouetted 
against the leaden sky with a record of a score of 
sieges, much shedding of blood, and a vouched-for 
as still operative ghost, and with the faintly lingering 
lees of a long-departed splendor, yet rewarding a 
close scrutiny, plus implicit confidence in the custo¬ 
dian. 

At each of our various landings, several hours were 
required to discharge and take on freights, and these 
we devoted to pleasant strolls through the little 
gray towns where these happy, wholesome people. 


Only Letters 59 

and their simple surroundings, are never lacking in 
interest. 

In Karlskrona we went into a small book-shop to 
buy post cards, and were joyfully greeted in “ Amer¬ 
ican ” by a Swede, who first asked me: “ How’s the 
election going to go ?” and then informed me that he 
had lived in Iowa for twenty-three years, was an 
American citizen, and hoped to end his days there. 
He called his wife, and the twain quite exhausted our 
joint stock of recent “ Americana ” with their eager 
questions. They certainly were overjoyed to see us, 
and stated that very few Americans ever came 
there. 

Winter is drawing on apace. All day yesterday 
vast flocks of wild fowl were never out of our sight 
on their way to the southlands. Seemingly endless 
strings of Brant, flying low to the water, and filling 
the air with their querulous whimpering cry, like 
beagles giving tongue in a thick fog. Far up against 
the leaden clouds long wedges of snowy geese, with 
now and again a little flight of swans, and lower, 
great flights of ducks of many sorts—among them 
the eider (the first I have seen) in great numbers. 
As many of these flocks passed us within easy gun 
range, you can readily appreciate my interest. 

The coast line is much like our own Maine,—bold, 
rugged, and boulder-strewn, with small spruce and 
white birch growths; here the latter “weeps” like 
our willow, but does not present a “sorry” appear¬ 
ance, as its leaves, now of a rich, golden yellow, are 
about all of autumnal color to be seen. Apropos of 
“birches,” I easily associate “weeping” with the 


6o 


Only Letters 

tender branches of our own tree of that ilk,—this, of 
course, a juvenile retrospect. 

The brilliant dawning of a glorious day finds us in 
the circumspectly serpentine threading of a sort of 
blending of the upper Hudson with the Thousand 
Islands of the St. Lawrence—islands large and small 
on every side, tiny land-locked bays, and narrow, 
fiercely foaming channels, marked with little, squat, 
ten-foot-high lighthouses rapidly multiply. In these 
little beacons the light burns perpetually for ten days, 
as their tender makes his rounds only at such inter¬ 
vals—oil being vastly cheaper than resident keepers, 
and so the lamps burn day and night alike. 

Save for the occasional little red hut of a fisherman, 
glowing amid the grays and greens, no signs of 
habitation appear; and seals,—not he of the precious 
“ pelt ” but the common “ harp ” seal (“ sea hund ” 
in Swedish) abound, sunning themselves in groups on 
the low-lying ledges, or bobbing up suddenly close 
to our boat, with their large, luminous eyes, and a 
general suggestion of the “Gold Dust Twins” 
abluting. 

About noon we commence passing charming villas 
that crown the heavily timbered headlands and larger 
islands, where the wealthy Stockholmers spend their 
summers, and where every little bay shelters a yacht, 
or pleasure craft of some sort. 

Passing through a fleet of outbound coasters, we 
enter the noble land-locked harbor, soon make fast 
to our dock, and disembark in the court end of 
Stockholm,—the new quarter directly facing the 
harbor. 


6i 


Only Letters 

It certainly is a most beautiful and attractive city, 
built on numerous islands, connected with bridges, 
and is especially rich in museums of various kinds, 
one of which, “ Skansen,” an altogether unique affair, 
we especially enjoyed. 

Skansen is a large park, rambling over several steep 
hills, directly overlooking the harbor, with its natural 
valleys and level spots devoted to a combination of 
national exposition and local pleasure ground. All 
over this park, and in the most artistic and realistic 
manner, have been built exact reproductions of the 
homes of the peasantry of the various provinces, and 
within these are gathered the household gods, utensils, 
costumes, and those countless hand-made things to 
which poverty and ingenuity stand sponsors all 
through this Scandinavian land, and which so strongly 
stamp the Norseman with a unique personality. All 
of their houses are complete and faithful reproduc¬ 
tions; some with horses, cows, pigs, and goats in 
theirs barns, fowls and geese in the square court¬ 
yards, and all with handsome peasant girls, of course 
in costume to show the show and smile the smile 
that “lands” the “ore”—(the pfenning of these 
parts). 

Scattered through the natural, or at least most 
circumspectly cultured woodlands, you constantly 
encounter native animals and birds housed in the 
most plausibly appropriate surroundings. For in¬ 
stance: beside the summer sod-hut of an unctuous 
Esquimaux family, and tied to whale ribs, are a lot of 
vixenish sledge dogs. Next, in a cave blasted out of 
the solid rock, and with a cataract flowing through 


62 


Only Letters 

it, a family of polar bears are appositely housed. In 
“Finland” a rough Arctic barnyard, has its herd of 
huge antlered reindeer, and so on “ad infinitum.” 

I was especially interested in the summer huts and 
winter quarters of a family of Arctic Laps,—father, 
mother, and moon-faced, almond-eyed daughter, 
with a little herring-hued grandson. They were now 
living in their circular sod and pole hut, lined with 
skins, smoke, assorted Arctic dirt, and obvious con¬ 
tent. I take it these are those “Laps of Luxury ” we 
hear so much of, as desirable “rearing” stations? 

In summer, Skansen is very gay and lively, with 
all sorts of shows, and appliances for rational out-of- 
door pleasures, that these older countries so well 
understand. 

But it grows late, and so a recess is quite in order. 
Good-night then to you. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Stockholm, October 15th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

One feature of this Northland most 
favorably impresses me, and that is the deep and 
vital interest all of these large cities manifest in the 
most remote and humble provinces, their life and in¬ 
habitants. How totally different from France, which 
is really two countries, viz.: Paris and the “Resi¬ 
due.” In that centre of art and culture the provinces 
are utterly ignored, and, in consequence, a vast deal 




Only Letters 63 

that would interest visitors is steadfastly tabooed and 
Paris “ per se ” is presented to the tourist as “ Omnia 
Gallia.” 

The inherent honesty of the Swede is most refresh¬ 
ing, permeating, as it does, the whole body politic, 
and even transmuting the hack driver into a “lusus- 
naturae” content with his legal fare, while the pro¬ 
fundity of the general civilization and enlightenment 
may be plumbed by the universal use of salt-spoons 
and the constant recurrence of “finger-bowls.” 

We are delighting in the Folk Museums, of which 
most cities have several, and even small towns cred¬ 
itable ones. These, as indicated by their name, are 
gatherings of the things the peasantry make, use, 
wear, and sell, household furniture and decorations, 
stuffs, costumes, jewelry, ironwork, pewters, pot¬ 
tery, glass—in short, a vast collection of most charm¬ 
ing and interesting things so admirably classified and 
arranged that each province may be studied under¬ 
standing^, and the strongly marked types of Norse 
art work and ornamentation seen at their very best. 

We are seriously handicapped by reason of the 
limited and most inconvenient hours that obtain after 
October first, for admission to the various collections, 
so that to see—even superficially, all that we wish to in 
our restricted time, we must forego midday lunches 
and simply browse at any hour that we can best 
spare for that essential performance. 

Letters from ’Petersburg speak, of cold weather 
having already reached them, and mention the fact 
that all of their casement windows have been closed 
and sealed up with putty, to so remain until late 


64 Only Letters 

April. Only fancy one breathing a “cooperative" 
“ozone" aged six months! 

But, here comes E., and, as we now have a 
“ quorum,” we will adjourn for dinner to one of the 
finest cafes in one of the very best hotels to be found 
in all Europe; so now as ’tis “trenchers to the fore," 
for two, 1 will for the time lay this aside. 

October 19th, 1900 . Four days have elapsed since 
we went to that very “admirable dinner," and we 
are now by the wild “Baltic’s Strand”—or at least 
out on that historic sea in another staunch little 
coaster, the good ship Nord Knsten , bound for 
’Petersburg (no one here prefixes “Saint" to that 
imperial city, whose founder was scarce that). 

A most delightful sojourn was ours in Stockholm, 
where, by dint of hard work and the total disregard 
of food, and normal hours elsewhere noted, we man¬ 
aged to see most of the after-season sights. We left 
there on Tuesday, at 10 p. M., sailing out of the light- 
encircled harbor into a stygian blackness, and a veri¬ 
table maze of those rocky islets and tortuous chan¬ 
nels, which make of navigation here an infallible 
hair-bleach to captains yet entitled to “unsilvered 
sables." 

I had an altogether unique experience last Sunday 
morning, resulting from that very commonplace and 
entirely laudable custom of ordering a bath before 
breakfast. After ringing, ordering it, and waiting 
interminably as usual here, where all “ hot water" is 
“custom-made," a tall, powerful, distinctly hand¬ 
some Swede of the gentler sex (and possibly forty 
years) appeared and escorted me through winding 


Only Letters 65 

ways to a very fine bath-room, with tiled walls, 
porcelain tub, etc. After testing the water, taking 
a hasty inventory of towels and soap, I turned me 
about to discover that this flaxen-haired Juno had 
donned a long rubber apron, a pair of huge felt 
shoes, and that one shapely but muscular bared arm 
terminated in a “ gant de Swede " covered with long 
bristles, the other hand grasping a great bar of soap, 
while from her pleasantly smiling lips there poured 
forth a stream of presumably encouraging Norse- 
bathos! 

Instantly it flashed into my recollection that here 
bathing is a game of “give and take," and that 
these female K. C. B.’s regularly tub and scrub 
those who would fain cultivate that virtue most 
akin to piety. In a twinkling my memory ran 
back (we won’t say how far) to the days when poor 
Jane H., now in her grave these many years, minis¬ 
tered in like manner to a most refractory hydro- 
phobic juvenile bather, and it was only after some 
strongly deprecatory pantomime “ business " that I 
induced this handsome ablutant superfluity, to re¬ 
tire and permit me to draw a long breath and a short 
bolt behind her, while she, doubtless, had a good 
laugh over the unproperly tubbed Anglisher “crank." 

In the chief Folk Museum, amid an enormous col¬ 
lection over which I could gladly spend days, I saw 
several things that peculiarly interested me. A high- 
backed chair made cf a section of a tree-trunk, 
around the edges of which were driven into the 
wood in regular row's, such teeth as the family had 
parted with from time to time, a collection regarded 


66 


Only Letters 

as an effectual charm to exorcise toothache, and to 
keep it, and incidentally” dentists, from the 
household. Some peasant harnesses for horses, 
whereof the hames and saddles were of elk and 
moose horns, many of them beautifully carved and 
engraved in quaint Celtic designs, outlined in black, 
and elaborately mounted in brass and copper. 

I was also greatly taken with a curious combina¬ 
tion of conveniences from one of the far Northern 
provinces. A wooden “ settle,” with the enclosed 
lower portion provided with two openings,—one 
about eighteen inches square at one end, and at the 
opposite end a circular hole of six inches. This com¬ 
partment, actually a sort of chest, is devoted to the 
rearing of geese. Old mother “ G ” entering by the 
larger aperture, and having her nest at the opposite 
end, and availing herself of the smaller hole to thrust 
her head out into the family “circle/' and, without 
prejudice to the infant gosling industry, to offer an 
occasional remark by way of “ anser ” ? Not a bad 
combination I thought, that, while the young folks on 
the bench overhead may be ‘ ‘ making geese ” of them¬ 
selves, old mother ditto below is devoting her seden¬ 
tary attention to the fostering of a brood, of which 
the choicest spirit may later be roasted to grace the 
impending wedding feast of those very same young 
folks. 

But I digress;—so consider us once more in the 
snug cabin of the Nord Kusten, creeping slowly 
through those winding channels in a very stygian 
blackness, until we reached an especially dangerous 
point, beyond which the captain would not venture, 


Only Letters 67 

but, adopting Pauline tactics, he “castanchors out of 
the stern ” (and bow) “ and wished for the day.” 

Early dawn found us skirting the bleak, rocky 
coast of Finland, with a feeble growth of wind¬ 
swept, stunted pines straggling down to a selvage of 
great boulders, eroded and rounded by the grinding 
of the ice packs of unnumbered winters. As the day, 
a dull one, brightened somewhat, again we see vast 
flocks of wild fowl—those at a long distance like 
wreaths of smoke from a steamer, while countless 
other flights pass us close by. 

We make our first landing at Abo, a small, sad- 
hued, little wooden town, where we lay for about 
four hours, and where we receive our first impression 
of the Finn as he exists in this most unwilling—in¬ 
deed this most rigorously coerced province of the 
Tsar’s vast empire, and where the universal sullen 
discontent over the recent tyranny of Russia is con¬ 
stantly apparent. 

Before we go ashore at Abo, I will bring this, much 
too lengthy screed to a close, and will take up the 
further record of our doings later. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


On the Gulf of Finland , October 20th, 1900. 
My dear M——: 

In Abo, we found a typical country 
town of low, wooden houses, many of them un¬ 
painted, rambling in gloomy rows along the hilly 





68 


Only Letters 

streets, in which several inches of pasty mud over¬ 
lays the paving of cracked flints. A fine Greek church, 
and, externally, at least, a most interesting ancient 
Lutheran one, were the only things of interest we 
saw from a quite unique ride. 

At the dock we took our first “drosky,” with its 
wild-eyed, shaggy-maned, alert Finnish pony, har¬ 
nessed beneath that little triumphal arch of wood and 
leather the “douga” used with every type of Slavic 
vehicle from the humblest peasant “telega,” to the 
splendid “troikas,” with their superb black “Or- 
loffs,” that fairly fly along the famous Nevsky Pros- 
pekt in great Petersburg. 

Our driver, amazingly dirty, and of surly mien, 
but quite otherwise in reality, we directed by the 
constant application of E.’s umbrella to his back, in 
combination with frantic gestures, until he had 
imbibed the idea that we were only “doing the 
sights” of the town, when that particular “Finn” 
took us along “swimmingly,” and soon showed us 
Abo's little all. 

Here, too, we encounter the first Russian troops; 
infantry, brought hither from remote provinces of the 
empire, so that they can have no natural affiliations 
with the strongly disaffected townspeople, clad in 
long, comfortable “butternut” coats of a heavy, 
course frieze, meeting short, wrinkled leg-boots, a 
round visorless astrakan cap, with the never-absent 
“Eagle” grilled a la Ruse, above the stolid, but de¬ 
cidedly pleasant faces. The officers “ smart ” to a 
degree, in long overcoat of a pearly gray, fitting to 
perfection—(there are no better dressed men in Eu- 


Only Letters 69 

rope than Russian officers), with full, baggy, blue 
trousers tucked into the tops of immaculate boots, 
snowy-white leather gloves, and handsome caps of 
the well-known German “pancake" model. Short 
curved swords hung from belts of heavy gold web¬ 
bing, etc. Many of them are strikingly handsome 
men, and, while thoroughly soldierly in their bear¬ 
ing, they are utterly free from the “starch” of 
German historic militarism. 

Having squeezed the Abo“ lemon ” to a “ drought ” 
we continue our voyage under leaden skies and over 
the quite “pacific” Finnish gulf,—unusually so for 
this time of year, when storms and rough weather 
are quite in order. We next sight Helsingfors, the 
ancient capital of Finland, which we found to be a 
decidedly lively, “up-to-date” little city of ninety 
thousand, with a large trade in lumber, of which ver¬ 
itable mountains of freshly cut pine and spruce, lent 
of their resinous odors to the off shore breeze that 
met us in the narrow channel, up which we sail, 
looking, meanwhile, into the threatening muzzles of 
heavy guns on either hand. 

We pass the regulation “Ancient Castle” on the 
conventional hill overlooking the harbor, work our 
way through quite a lot of shipping, and so up to 
dock, “drosky,”and diversions diverse. Here we 
encounter the altogether correct Russian drosky 
driver, with the peculiar hat of his cult, so suggestive 
of a regular “ pot-at' ” as “ had been sat upon hard,” 
and underneath it a thick mop of black, oily hair; 
then follows a heavy coat of blue cloth, pleated up 
the back, and distended with pillows made for the 


7<3 Only Letters 

purpose, until the man looked like a vast blue melon, 
girt around his presumable waist, and very slightly 
reduced at that point, by a cotton belt of lurid hues. 
Him we also guided by pantomime, plus pokes, did a 
little shopping, and finally found ourselves in a fine 
cafe, where, to the weird music of a Russo-Finnish 
peasant band, we had that “ rara avis'’ on this side, 
some really fine coffee, minus chickory, after which, 
and a most interesting stroll through the bright and 
lively streets, gay with many fine shops, we made 
our way back to the Nord Kusten. 

Here we found the most amiable of Swedish mari¬ 
ners “off soundings" in a sea of trouble, as an en¬ 
tire gang of thirty men, engaged to discharge his cargo 
of heavy machinery, iron, etc., had taken the money 
he had advanced them for supper, and, limiting the 
menu of that meal exclusively to vodka, had all got¬ 
ten crazy drunk and left him in a body,—and, I may 
add, in a justifiable rage. 

After a deal of hunting, and a delay of five hours, 
the mate secured another gang, discharged the stuff, 
and we got under way in the small hours. 

Another day of rocky, bleak, fir-clad shores, more 
flights of migrating wild fowl, and occasional furtive 
seals, a gloomy day of chill autumnal breezes, and, 
as the evening sun pierced the leaden clouds, we sight 
the huge Martello Tower, that forms one of the outer 
works of Cronstadt—perhaps the most strongly for¬ 
tified port in existence. 

This huge, circular tower of granite, pierced for 
three or four tiers of guns, is now practicably obso¬ 
lete, but scattered over the wide estuary, by which 


Only Letters 71 

the Neva pours its turbid waters into the Finnish 
gulf, are small, low-lying, rocky islands,—some of 
them mere ledges of rock, but each one has been 
converted into a steel-faced battery mounting a great 
total of enormous, long-ranged guns. These, in 
connection with yet more formidable batteries that 
line the shores on either bank of the river’s mouth, 
and that rise in tiers on the receding hillsides, consti¬ 
tute a veritable volcano of overwhelming destructive 
power, before which the combined fleets of Chris¬ 
tendom would fare badly under such a cross fire as 
could be turned upon them, if they were not first 
blown to atoms by the systems of submarine mines 
and torpedoes, said to be as extensive and elaborate 
as the terrestrial terrors. 

Whistling loudly for the indispensable pilot, we 
enter the broad, deep river, with its rushing yellow 
tide, and the whistling coming to naught, we anchor 
in a dense fog. 

The approach to Cronstadt from without is most 
impressive, with its wonderful maze of fortifica¬ 
tions; and back of them, on the green hillsides, amid 
houses of snowy whiteness, the golden or vivid 
green onion domes, and slender tapering spires, with 
graceful pendant gilt chains, glowing in the sunlight 
with a seeming incandescence that casts a truly ori¬ 
ental glamour over the Russo-Greek architecture. 

Under way by daylight, and passing long lines of 
warships, and the vast navy yards where others are 
building, sailing through numerous groups of fisher¬ 
men tossing in cockle-shell boats on the rough 
choppy tide, after a couple of hours we sight, first 


72 


Only Letters 

the squalid suburbs of Great Peter’s city, and anon 
the huge golden dome of St. Isaac’s splendid fane, 
and the continuity of palaces that line the famous 
English quay, and are soon waving greetings to the 
group awaiting us on the granite pier. 

With the efficient aid of a Russo-English lady, who 
accompanied C. and H., we soon pass unscathed a 
merely perfunctory custom’s inspection, and then, 
taking droskies from the crowd that surround us and 
clamor for custom, we cross a long bridge, follow 
the fine avenue along the Neva, turn into the. famous 
Nevsky Prospekt, i. e. } “Avenue of the Neva,” and 
are speedily set down at No. 5 Troitskaya (Street of 
the Trinity), where you will now consider me as ab¬ 
sorbed in the manifold distractions of a recent arrival 
in a strange land. As ever yours, 

F. 


St. Petersburg , October 24th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

I scarce know where to begin with the 
veritable tidal wave of new impressions that has 
swept over me in the past three days. All here is 
absolutely novel, and nothing that you see elsewhere 
in Europe, prepares one for Russia and the Russians. 

As I stated in my last, a couple of droskies, drawn 
by the omni-present Finnish pony, that most spirited, 
docile, and altogether delightful bit of kittenish horse¬ 
flesh, deposited us at No. 5 Troitskaya, and thereby 
“ hangs a tale ” and certes in its “ unfolding,” an ex- 




Only Letters 73 

ceeding pleasant one. Here we are lodged (C. and 
H. having been here already several weeks), in a 
most charming homelike pension, close to the Nevsky 
Prospekt, kept by an English couple; the actual 
“head ” (I need scarce add), of the gentler sex (and 
in this case superlatively “gentle”), was born here, 
and consequently this, to the stranger hopeless 
tongue, is to her as the language we share in common. 

The house is large, with bright, cozy rooms, and 
the table a never-failing, ever-changing exposition of 
the superabundant variety of Muscovite gastronomic 
possibilities, and of the fact that, “ with such heaven¬ 
sent meats,” “cooks” are not invariably furnished by 
the “Nameless One.” 

At the hospitable board of Madam K. C. we con¬ 
stantly meet a succession of charming folk, many of 
them English, or English-speaking, a constantly re¬ 
curring Russian princess, a most agreeable young 
prince of high rank, army officers, scientists, a 
Turkish-Bey, seeking to learn the English “as she is 
spoke,” etc., etc. So you can see there is no lack of 
pleasant mental friction. 

This city is indeed a strange meeting and mingling 
of the extremes of squalor and wealth, of savagery 
and splendor. French influences distinctly prevail in 
the architecture and genius of the city, which is at 
once imposing, and, in one sense, at least, an imposi¬ 
tion, buildings of actual stone being very rare, and 
the not over-powering external splendors, of the 
interminable palaces, ducal, grand ducal, and 
princely being merely a thick coating of stucco on a 
substratum of remarkably poor “salmon ” brick. 


74 Only Letters 

As the city was founded by the inflexible will of an 
autocrat on the flexible mud of a vast morass, piling 
is largely employed for foundations, and it is said 
that stone buildings cannot be properly supported— 
I fancy by either foundations or finances. 

These palaces are spread along the one really fine 
street, the famous Nevsky Prospekt, and are mostly 
painted of a deep terra cotta, with, in some instances, 
bright green roofs, and the effect is distinctly pleasing. 

I have always held that the Viennese hackman was 
“facile princeps,” as a dangerous, reckless driver, 
but I had not been long abroad here before I discov¬ 
ered that these isvoschiks, greasy, bloated, human 
cushions that they be, utterly distance the Austrian 
“jehus” in their willing ability to magnify the perils 
of pedestrianism. With the fiery little horses already 
described, and, as a rule, rubber tires, they dash 
along at an apparently unchecked speed, and swoop 
down upon you at the crossings, yelling when close 
upon you: “Beregese!” i. e., look out, or, “Prava,” 
to the right, or, “ Larva,” to the left. 

When you consider that so many of these isvo¬ 
schiks are perpetually soaked with vodka, it is a 
wonder that there are not constant smash-ups; but 
no! these dirty, mop-haired, soft-voiced ruffians drive 
marvelously,—and their horses keep sober. 

The Nevsky Prospekt—perhaps one hundred and 
fifty feet wide, with two strips of fine wood paving 
for private carriages, between other strips of rough 
cobbles for ordinary traffic, has wide walks of granite 
slabs, and, what few really fine shops exist, are scat¬ 
tered along its two sides for about a mile. 


75 


Only Letters 

It is a constant surprise to see the really elegant 
goods that are sold in small, shabby-looking shops. 
This is notably the case in the two other shopping' 
streets,—the “Great” and “Little Moscows,” which 
cross the Nevsky. 

A few blocks below us is the Gostinny Dvor (the 
“Guest House”), i. e. t Grand Bazaar, with a front 
on the Nevsky of seven hundred feet, and a depth of 
eleven hundred, a vast two-story building with con¬ 
tinuous arcades. On all of its four sides are hundreds 
of small shops of all sorts,—chiefly small wares, 
fancy goods, toys, icons or sacred pictures, samovars, 
furs, sweetmeats, etc. 

These shops are an endless source of entertainment 
to the strolling idler, and in them he can speedily 
discover how intense is the Slavic appreciation of 
the commercial value of the lie circumstantial. It is 
to be regretted that, in their ability and willingness 
to overcharge, and in the fecundity of their menda¬ 
cious resourcefulness, these courteous, soft-voiced 
shopmen have naught to learn from the Latin races, 
—not an iota. 

Owing to the prevailing illiteracy, the fronts of 
most shops (bar the very finest), are covered with 
pictures, often admirably done, of what is sold inside, 
so that the least sapient of “ wayfarers ” need make 
no mistakes when shopping. 

As 1 write this, I am facing a large shop across the 
street, with its white front covered with tubs of 
butter, cut cheeses, baskets of eggs, cans of milk, 
etc., which pictures convey to me all necessary in¬ 
formation ungleanable from a sign in characters, that 


76 Only Letters 

defy any differentiating of the owner’s name from 
his wares. 

At many of the street corners, in the markets, on 
bridges—indeed at every turn, are placed shrines to 
the Virgin, with one or more icons, or sacred pic¬ 
tures, pendant lamps, and large, many-spiked can¬ 
delabra to receive the prayers of the devout in the 
form of slender tallow candles, costing a few coppers 
each. Before these shrines the passer-by halts, 
uncovers, devoutly bows his head, crosses himself 
thrice, and then hurries on his way. When driving, 
or riding in the tram cars, while of course no halt is 
made, many uncover and cross themselves as each 
shrine is passed. At a corner of the Great Bazaar is 
an especially popular shrine, with splendid icons, 
and ever a perfect blaze of light from a forest of 
tallow petitions, arising at least, until their devout 
offerer has disappeared around the corner, when they 
are quickly blown out and tossed into a waiting box, 
thus becoming an easy “prey" to the liveried func¬ 
tionary, who remoulds and sells such systematically 
curtailed devotions to a never-lacking throng of new 
purchasers. 

Around the doors of churches and chapels hover 
flocks of sallow nuns, dressed in rusty black, with 
curious head-gear, and long-legged, truly masculine 
boots in evidence, below greatly abbreviated skirts. 
These nuns thrust into the faces of all comers a flat 
pad of black velvet with a tinsel cross and a few 
coppers upon it, and beg for contributions with a 
singular monotonous whine. 

I met a soldier’s funeral yesterday, headed by a 


77 


Only Letters 

small cart pushed by two men, from which another 
man in black slowly scattered sprigs of evergreen on 
the snow. Following came four men with tali lan¬ 
terns, really small street lamps, in which oil lamps 
burned feebly and smelled strongly. Next a Greek 
priest, in a flowing mantle of cloth of silver and black 
skull-cap, from under which his long, jet-black hair 
streamed over the splendid robe as he walked with 
rhythmic step, and swung a most beautiful silver 
censer. Next came the relatives—fifteen or twenty 
fine-looking people, and then the hearse—a huge, 
tower-like affair, mostly silver-gilt, and fairly smoth¬ 
ered with flowers, palms, memorial scarfs, etc., 
almost hiding the coffin; but its chief attraction was 
a brilliant electric light at each corner of the great 
structure, of course run by a storage battery inside. 
Following the hearse came his company, marching 
without arms, two officers riding on each side of the 
hearse. Every one uncovered, bowed low, and 
crossed themselves thrice as the procession passed. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


St Petersburg, October 29th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

The human tides that ebb and flow 
along the Nevsky are a never-failing source of in¬ 
terest by reason of their motley make-up. The 
military element is, of course, the predominant one, 
and almost every third man or boy one meets is in a 




78 Only Letters 

uniform of some sort. Of general officers, easily 
distinguishable by a piping of red on the edges of 
their long gray overcoats, there are said to be more 
than three hundred here, and I should think at least 
“ two hundred and eighty-six ” always on the street. 

As already mentioned, the Russian officer is thor¬ 
oughly elegant in his “make-up," and the Kazaks 
especially so in their long-skirted, close-fitting coats 
of brown, red, blue, or white, profusely embroidered 
in silver, and with beautiful bandoliers on their 
breasts in the same metal. On their heads tall astra- 
kan peaked caps of black or white, or the ordinary 
“pork-pie" served with the ubiquitous “grilled 
eagle," elegantly embroidered silver girdles and 
sword belts, complete—a really “fetching" outfit. 

Some of these Kazaks have already donned their 
long winter cloaks of white lamb or goatskins, and, 
as they walk with the left hand resting on the pom¬ 
mel of their long, wicked-looking scimeter-ish 
swords, they spread wide the skirts of these tent-like 
furry capes and look for all the world like mucilage 
pots moving on casters, by reason of their shuffling 
steps, taken with almost invisible feet. Without the 
shelter of this cloak your Kazak gives abundant evi¬ 
dences of his habitual riding in the fact that his legs, 
follow the “ bent " of his natural environment. The 
man walks in “ parenthesis," is, in short, very “ bow- 
legged." 

All students, of which there seems to be myriads, 
wear uniforms, some of them cocked hats and 
swords, and they fairly exhaust among them the 
possibilities of head-gear; but the Prussian “pan- 


Only Letters 79 

cake” cap, with a short visor, seems to be the prime 
favorite. 

Some of the generals wear superb overcoats reach¬ 
ing to their jingling spurs, lined with sables, and 
with deep collars of those enormously costly, extra 
dark skins, in which glisten those silver hairs that in¬ 
fallibly stamp them “sterling”; and from a button¬ 
hole there usually peeps the “ Princeton orange and 
black ” ribbon, that here is the cognizance of the 
most noble order of St. George. 

The “bashlyk,” a deep, conical hood, of a pecul¬ 
iarly soft, fleecy, brown cloth, is universally worn in 
cold weather by the common soldier, with its long 
tabs tucked under the cross belts, and, by officers and 
civilians of both sexes and all ages, tied around the 
neck, and then drawn over the head in rough 
weather. 

Another interesting Nevsky experience is those 
stately nurses, tall, broad-shouldered, handsome 
peasants, often Finns, wearing velvet diadems cov¬ 
ered with huge pearl beads, and with broad stream¬ 
ers of ribbon reaching almost to the ground. When 
the charge is a boy, the nurse is gowned in blue; 
when a girl, in pink. 

The coachmen are another constant source of in¬ 
terest, those of the wealthy being usually Tatars, 
with great flashing black eyes, rosy cheeks, and long, 
flowing beards, which they carefully crimp, comb 
out, and perfume, and which, as they dash along, 
float back in waves over their shoulders. 

In winter they wear square-topped velvet caps of 
crimson, purple, green, brown, etc., elaborately 


8o 


Only Letters 

braided with gold, and sometimes encircled with a 
band of peacock-feather eyes, standing erect; and 
when, as mentioned in a former letter, they are al¬ 
ways padded out to mammoth proportions, and then 
girt around with a gorgeous oriental silk girdle, they 
really are splendid objects. Especially “fetching” 
are they when perched on the narrow little front seat 
of a sledge, which they quite overflow, and where 
they maintain their positions by placing one foot in 
an iron stirrup built outside of the sledge body. 

Foreign ministers are always attended by an “ad¬ 
jutant,” who, on a coach, sits beside one of these 
inflated, walrus-like jehus; and, by reason of his re¬ 
dundant splendor, acts as a neutralizing “soda” to 
that “ cream of Tatar,” so to speak. 

It would be difficult to conceive, in the blending of 
hues and fabrics, of metals, embroideries, and 
feathers (preeminently of feathers!), of anything 
more startlingly gorgeous than an embassy adjutant! 
in all his glory, and he never appears in other than 
“concert pitch.” 

The natives’ horses are of two distinct types (there 
are a few English horses here)—the tall, loose-jointed, 
coal-black “orloff,” high on his forelegs and droop¬ 
ing quickly aft, with long tail, mane, and forelock, 
not as a rule, to my thinking, really handsome, but 
a good goer. I am speaking of the ordinary driving 
horse. Of course, the “ swells ” have splendid cattle. 
The other animal is the Finnish pony, the universal 
cab and sled horse, shaggy-coated, with wonderfully 
bright eyes, quick, gentle, an untiring worker; he is 
the “fox-terrier” of horse-flesh. 


8i 


Only Letters 

I saw a driver the other day with his horse's nose 
resting on his shoulder, while he cut great wedges 
from a huge loaf of black bread, which they shared 
together, ‘‘turn and turn about,” and munched in 
unison with great satisfaction. 

These “isvoschiks” never beat nor abuse their 
teams, and the whips they carry are the merest toys. 
As a result of such uniform humanity, their horses 
are as docile as dogs. I do not remember ever seeing 
a cab horse lay his ears back or snap at any one 
passing. When they talk to them, as they do con¬ 
stantly, the most endearing terms are used, such as: 
“Come, come! my little dove, we must hasten; we 
have yet far to go, and thou must run, my little one," 
or: “Let us hurry home before the darkness, little 
one,”—always some affectionate diminutive—“little 
dear,” “little dove,” “little one,” etc. 

The Slav is as unfailingly merciful to his beast as 
the Latin is shockingly cruel to his. 

The “ douga ” (elsewhere mentioned) a sort of 
wooden, triumphal arch, when used for draft horses, 
is a most important and highly ornamental feature, 
being a massive wooden affair, painted in the bright¬ 
est hues, with flowers such as could only bloom in 
the Slavic delight for gay colors. E. has purchased 
an extra large and typically gay one, which may 
appear to you later as a hat-rack. 

Behind the grand bazaar, and covering many acres, 
is a series of small, open squares, connected by a 
complicated network of rambling arcades and pas¬ 
sages, a combination of open-air market and petty 
shops,—or rather stalls. 


82 


Only Letters 

This place, known as the “Jews' Market,” is the 
“ happy hunting-ground " of the peasant and humbler 
citizens, and, as I learned later, of “thugs” and 
rascals various. 

In one of these squares, i. e ., the Haymarket, the 
ground is piled high, with mountains of cheap china 
and earthenware, much of it in form and color 
admirable, with other mountains of hats and caps; 
“foot hills” of boots, of every hue—black, red, 
yellow, blue, green—(tons of grass-green boots), 
very long in the legs and amazingly wrinkled. Then 
there are other great heaps of felt boots;—clothing, old 
and new; thousands of those red and gilt wooden 
bowls that are sold all over the world, etc., etc. 

Apropos of boots, Russia is preeminently the land 
of “leg boots,” which are here worn by rich and 
poor, man, woman, and child, prince and beggar. 
Leather must be cheap; it is so constantly in evidence; 
indeed in many of the poorer quarters the air is laden 
with an aroma suggesting nothing so much as cab¬ 
bage soup-boiling in a leather boot, and, in sooth, a 
superstrenuous appeal to sense Number 3 is that 
same perfume. As ever yours, 

F. 


St. Petersburg , November }d, 1900. 
My dear M-: 

As it grows colder, the “ tulup,” or 
sheepskin coat, is having a tremendous sale and use. 
These are worn with the flesh side out, and are 




Only Letters 83 

usually of a yellow, or tan color, fastened with large 
hooks and eyes, fitted close to the body, with spread¬ 
ing ballet-dancer skirts, and are usually embroidered 
on the breast, with quaint (often admirable) Norse 
designs in black thread or silk. When new the tulup 
is quite stylish; but, after they have been worn for 
untold years (they are said to last twenty-five), and 
have taken to themselves (along with an undisturbed 
resident population) an enamel of grease, and the 
sordid lustre of incessant wear, the Frankish eye and 
nose conjointly shun close contact with these uni¬ 
versally worn garments. 

In the same Jew Market, mentioned in my last, is a 
square given over to smoked and pickled fish, and to 
amazing piles of great circular loaves of black buck¬ 
wheat bread—the main food of the working people, 
and very palatable it is to my thinking. Other 
quarters were devoted to cotton stuffs of stunning 
hues, peasant-made toys, many of these distinctly 
clever, despite their crudity, cheap hardware, etc., 
etc. None of this stuff in disorder and scattered over 
the ground, but all kept in neat and attractive piles or 
rows. 

Of course such a cluster of markets is ever thronged 
with buyers, chiefly of the poorer citizens, with an 
army of peasants from all quarters of the empire; the 
latter in an infinity of quaint attire, a never-failing 
source of interest to me. 

The Slav has a peculiarly soft, pleasantly modulated 
voice, and the small amount of noise made by these 
crowds of far-from-listless traders is remarkable— 
yelling, or even loud talking, being of rare occurrence. 


84 Only Letters 

With my (should I confess it ?) taste for certain 
types of “low company" in its native jungle, my 
first stroll through this maze of applied ethnography, 
stamped it as an ever-resourceful objective for my 
habitual post prandial prowls; and, as we will be 
here some weeks, I count upon a close acquaintance 
with this entertaining place and its clientele. 

I am forced to take my walks abroad by the aid of 
a compass, using the gleaming dome of St. Isaac’s to 
steer by, and so, with the Neva and the Nevsky as 
additional guides, I never get lost for long or deeply. 
It is a novel experience to be where street signs tell 
me naught, and where, away from the main shops, 
no one speaks aught but this, to the visitor, hopeless 
tongue, and where streets commence, end, and ramify 
with an eccentricity truly Petrine. 

Yesterday to the extreme upper end of the Nevsky, 
where the street commences at the fortress-monastery 
bearing his name, and in which lie the sacred bones 
of the warrior prince, Saint Alexander Nevsky, in a 
two-ton tomb of solid silver, adorned with jewels, 
and with a painting of his sacred face, where it is 
accessible to and incessantly saluted with the devout 
kisses of adoring Muscovy. 

Within the circling walls of this monument to one 
of Russia’s most cherished heroes are numerous 
churches, and chapels, cells for the monks, gardens, 
etc., gradual additions to what was once a formidable 
fortress with a strong garrison. 

Wandering homeward afoot, I was impressed with 
the restricted limitations of civic elegance here. Away 
from the central parts of three or four streets, cheap, 


Only Letters 85 

commonplace, wooden houses and shops, lime- 
washed in pink, yellow, green, purple, etc., line dull 
thoroughfares, with here and there a log house,— 
precisely such as I have fished and hunted from in 
the Maine backwoods—bar the gay coloring. Amid 
these trite surroundings, however, a constant suc¬ 
cession of splendid churches raise aloft their clusters 
of domes of various forms and colorings, tall, slender 
minarets, short stemmed onions, squat obese towers, 
and towerlets, spindling spires and spirelets fairly 
blaze with gold and color. A cobalt-blue onion, 
thickly strewn with large gold stars, is an especially 
favored combination; but an intense green, with 
white or gold bands, is a good second; and then the 
reds and terra cottas, and the purples and glowing- 
yellows also abound; and, when from such a group 
of warm colors high up against the leaden sky, long- 
lines of ornate gilded chains sweep down in graceful 
curves, the effect is most impressive. 

There is a general sameness in these chilly, Russo- 
Greek interiors; icons, more or less precious from 
the jewels with which they are often incrusted, hang 
on the “golden doors" of the shrine. Slender tal¬ 
low candles star the gloom, to lighten the prayers of 
the devout and contribute to the “odor of sanctity," 
a blending of extinct incense, with the aroma of the 
ever-present, genuflexing Ivan, with his record of 
ten thousand untaken baths, that is never absent from 
these sacred walls. 

The Russo-Greek cross, as you may remember, is 
peculiar in having three transverse beams—the short 
upper one for the superscription, below it one for the 


86 


Only Letters 

arms, as in the Latin cross, and still lower a third one 
for the feet. This latter is set on a slant, as in the 
early Greek church it was held that Christ was de¬ 
formed in having one leg shorter than the other, bas¬ 
ing that belief upon Isaiah 53:2, “He hath no form 
nor comeliness nor beauty,”—certainly a unique in¬ 
terpretation of the prophecy. 

It is astonishing how much the Russian uses his 
head “under” rather than “ in ” his work. Every¬ 
thing seems to be carried on the head. 

Yesterday I met a long procession, led by four 
men, each with his head under one corner of a huge 
mirror; and the way that squad kept step on the 
snow-sprinkled cobbles was remarkable. One slip 
or stumble meant a sudden end to great “reflec¬ 
tions.” After this squad, came a long single file of 
men—possibly thirty, each with a chair, table, or 
some bit of furniture on his flat cap; then pairs with 
two heads under a sofa, or bureau; it was simply a 
Yankee “flitting” done into Russian. Furniture 
cars, as we know them I never saw here, 'tis al¬ 
ways Ivan,—never simply “ van ” for moving house¬ 
hold gear. 

The overshoe is a very important Russian factor— 
every one wears them—even soldiers—yes, even offi¬ 
cers, and for them a special shoe is made, with a 
deep notch at the back to let the spur shank 
through. 

At the Palace Gates the sentry stands in a huge 
pair of galoshes, out of which he steps when relieved, 
and into which the new man steps when he goes on 


Only Letters 87 

post. That particular pair of shoes seems to fit the 
feet of the entire foot of the Russian army—they must 
have been made on the “last of the Mohicans," 

As ever yours, 

F. 


St. Petersburg , November 6th , 1900. 
My dear M-: 

Just below our street, the “ Troitskaya," 
albeit an exceedingly “South of Market "Avenue, 
but full of poor shops and shabby old buildings; 
nevertheless, the Aintchkoff bridge, with a beautiful 
railing of sea-horses, and four splendid bronze groups 
of classic horse-tamers, spans the Fontanka—a river 
by courtesy, but in point of fact an obvious canal. 
Once a small stream meandering through the bear and 
wolf haunted bog, selected by Peter, to advertise to 
mankind what a poor “show" nature had when it 
encountered a “Romanoff," but now widened, 
deepened, and walled with granite blocks, it carries 
a tremendous traffic through the very heart of the 
city, and its banks furnish me with most entertaining 
sight-seeing strolls. This splendidly reconstructed 
stream describes a semicircle—one extremity entering 
the Neva at the court end beyond the Winter Palace, 
intersecting a congestion of the large and gloomy 
homes of wealthy nobles and gentry; its other end, 
after crossing the aristocratic “dead line" of the 
Nevsky Prospekt, again enters the Neva through a 
long stretch of thickly built-up business sections, 




88 


Only Letters 

bearing upon its freely polluted bosom a varied flot¬ 
sam of uncherished contributions. 

From this river a series of low, red, stucco pal¬ 
aces of divers High and Mightynesses stretch their 
monotonous lengths along the Nevsky, including the 
Aintchkoff Palace, abiding place of His Imperial Ap¬ 
prehensiveness, the Tsar, when that amiable, well- 
meaning anticipatory target is for the time being 
“set-up” in his chief city. 

Further along the stream are great wash houses, 
where whole platoons of “galley-slaves,” sturdy, 
white-capped washer ladies sing lustily over that 
eradication of buttons and fostering of fringes, in¬ 
separable from the sanitary flagellations that repre¬ 
sent washing on “this side.” 

A long way down the Fontanka I came upon the 
Fish Market of great barges sunk almost to the 
water’s level, and with the “ live stock” swimming- 
in various compartments, from which it is dipped 
with nets as wanted. I stood for a long time and 
watched a man dip out a great heap of pike that 
would weigh ten or fifteen pounds each—some much 
larger, and a fine bass running to five or six pounds, and 
a slippery flappery time had that Russian with those 
“fins” on the sloping, slimy decks before that heap 
of wiggling fish had been weighed and carried ashore 
in hampers to a lot of waiting customers. 

All Petersburg burns wood—residence and factory 
alike, coal being rarely seen; and, in consequence, a 
vast flotilla of fuel boats, piled mountain high with 
short logs of silvery birch, is ever traversing the Fon¬ 
tanka. These ark-like boats come from remote for- 


Only Letters 89 

ests, bordering the many minor rivers and streams 
that flow into Lake Ladoga. Many of these boats 
come hundreds of miles, requiring months for the 
voyage, and are poled the entire distance by the skip¬ 
per and family who, in pairs, and at obtuse angles, 
trudge wearily along the narrow gunwale with the 
pole end bearing against the shoulder. It is almost 
pathetic to watch these solemn-faced pairs of push¬ 
ing voyagers, headed by the father in cap and blouse, 
with baggy breeches of coarse tow thrust into the in¬ 
evitable boots; next the patient wife, often looking 
underfed and overworked, but with a gay printed 
kerchief on her head, and a cotton gown of a deep 
crimson, often with an apron of rose pink—(this 
combination of two reds, I notice, is a prime favorite 
with the peasantry). Then possibly an Ivanovitch or 
two, and, peradventure, if Ivan’s “quiver” be a full 
one, a handsome, bare-headed girl, with great cable¬ 
like plaits of tawny hair, and with the never-absent 
roses of her cheek fading into a full round neck, 
sun-stippled to a true Rembrantish russet. 

After the cargo has been discharged, the boat, put 
together with wooden pins with such dissolution in 
view, is dismembered, and its planking and timbers 
sold to be used for building the elsewhere noted 
shabby suburban houses, for fences, etc. 

A stroll along either bank of the Fontanka is a con¬ 
stant succession of pictures, an animated panorama 
of the ways, means, and possibilities of this nation 
of many tribes, that I never fail to find remunerative. 

Below, where the river crosses the Nevsky, is the 
Alexandra Square, with a splendid bronze statue of 



•»i ff±y 


90 


Only Letters 

the Great Catharine in her imperial robes, with crown, 
orb, and sceptre raised aloft upon a pedestal, around 
which are grouped the men who lent a lustre to the 
reign of that strenuous ruler, and who incidentally 
helped to make it at least one syllable more than* 
“famous." 

Beyond this square,—really a small park, is the im¬ 
mense and treasure-crammed Imperial Library, where 
I spent a most interesting hour, despite the alighting 
of the “fly" of insufficiency in the “ointment" of 
an otherwise delightful experience. The custodian— 
(I felt like interlarding another “s" in his title), ran 
a group of five through the various showrooms, 
while rolling off with great volubility on the regular 
parrot lines an incessant stream of explanations, a 
fluent Mosaic of absurdities, culled from the suppose- 
able tongues of the group, viz.: French, German, 
Russian, Swedish, and English. Twas a shocking 
case of lingual strabismus, but the books, manu¬ 
scripts, etc., were quite beyond his capabilities as an 
interest obliterator—he certainly was a “pearl of great 
price " at two roubles per capita. 

Below the Grand Bazaar, standing far back from 
the street, and approached through two long, incurv¬ 
ing colonnades, after the manner of St. Peter’s at 
Rome, is the famous Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, 
in front of which is a large, open square, which is 
the place usually chosen by students for their meet¬ 
ings and “disturbances," and where their assemblies 
are usually adjourned “sine die" et cum flagellis 
Kazak-iutn. 

On each side of the square is a colossal bronze 


9 i 


Only Letters 

statue of a famous general,—the one on the left, I 
noticed, with his hand seemingly pressed against his 
stomach, while his mate on the far side of the wide 
space was pointing directly at a near-by drug store 
across the street, as if saying in the Slavonic tongue: 
“ There is hope, my comrade, cheer up, old man! ” 
After ignoring the booted, begging nuns, who flock 
around its either door, we enter, and, when the eye 
becomes accustomed to a perpetual twilight, its 
splendors are most impressive. Rows of huge col¬ 
umns of polished Finland granite bear up the lofty 
roof, and the many altars, each with its groups of 
intercessory candles, fairly blaze with the splendid 
jewels with which the sacred, gold-obscured pictures 
are encrusted. One especially venerated icon, famous 
throughout the empire as “Our Lady of Kazan,” 
hangs on the golden doors that screen the holy place 
of the high altar, and is thickly covered with large 
diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies of a fab¬ 
ulous and widely varying estimated value. It is posi¬ 
tively dazzling in the blaze of candles that constantly 
surrounds it. Before these altars, and side-by-side, the 
poorest peasant, now in his winter felt boots, greasy 
tulup, and with a mop of long, unkempt hair streaming 
over the pavement, kneels beside a general in asplendid 
uniform, with clattering sword, and a row of orders 
on his breast, as both press the sacred, but far from 
cleanly stone flags with their adoring foreheads— 
often repeating these prostrations several times before 
the various altars. And so is it with the women; 
now a solemn-faced peasant in a red cotton gown 
side-by-side with some great lady in velvet and sables 


92 


Only Letters 

meet for a moment on a common plane of devotion, 
and together these touch—the one a white, the other 
a brown forehead to the cold and grimy pavement 
before the altar of their choice. 

I never before saw worshipers with such a uni¬ 
versally absorbing reverence as is manifested in the 
Orthodox Russo-Greek churches. It is truly pathetic 
to see the feverish eagerness of gentle and simple 
alike, as in one common crowd they fairly struggle to 
reach and kiss some especially venerated picture held 
out to them by a priest in his gleaming robe of cloth- 
of-gold or silver. 

But I must not overtax your strength by too long a 
stroll down the Nevsky, so I will defer the remainder 
of it until my next letter. As ever yours, 

F. 


St Petersburg, November ioth , 1900. 
My dear M-: 

Fancy yourself back on the Nevsky once 
more, and strolling along that fine avenue, whereon 
is concentrated the life of the city. 

Below the Kazan Cathedral are the “smartest" of 
the not very “smart" at best, shops; some of the 
distinctly Russian ones very attractive, especially those 
of the silversmiths and jewelers, and of the Caucasus 
and Circassian merchants, with no end of charming 
oriental wares and stuffs; these latter shops have a 
wonderful variety of beautiful silks and cottons—not 
elsewhere found. 




93 


Only Letters 

After passing the Great and Little Moscows,—two 
cross-currents of subdued shopping attractions, we 
reach the end of the Nevsky Prospekt, with the broad 
and rapid Neva gleaming at our feet, and on its further 
shore the great and historic fortress of Peter and 
Paul. To our right, as we face the river, is the vast 
pile of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage (the 
Russian Louvre), whose joint facades seem to be one 
great, continuous building. To our left a long and 
narrow park, behind whose winter-stripped trees the 
splendid Admiralty building follows the river line 
with its seemingly interminable facade. 

As I stand at the entrance of the little park, and 
face the great open space before the palace, the fa¬ 
mous Column of Alexander I looms up before me. 
This is the largest monolith of modern times, of red 
Finnish granite, a perfectly plain cylindrical shaft 
fourteen feet in diameter and eighty-four feet high, 
resting on a block of the same stone twenty-five feet 
square, and surmounted by an angel bearing a cross, 
the base being surrounded by a railing cast from cap¬ 
tured bronze guns. Around it constantly marches, 
or rather totters, one of the feeble veterans of the 
Crimea, who, with a long row of service medals on 
his breast, and wearing the old-time bearskin shako, 
and the uniform, in which he saw Alma and Inkerman, 
guards this famous monument. 

Through the denuded tree-tops, and, gleaming in 
the morning sun, a glimpse of the great golden dome 
of St. Isaac's may be had, and, borne on the “ eager 
and nipping air" the pealings of a host of minor 
bells, far up in some one of its several belfries, may 


94 


Only Letters 

be heard. Indeed, there seems to be no hour in the 
day when these delightfully “telling” bells are not 
being “tolled”; now but “sweet bells jangled” in 
a minor key, then a great sonorous boom rolls forth 
and quivers on the air as some vast leader of the 
brazen pack “gives tongue.” 

Your Slav has a sweet-tooth, and confectioners 
abound, of whom may be bought along with quite a 
lengthy list of distinctly national comfits, the best 
and cheapest chocolate we have found in Europe, 
while the provision shops, in the variety of their 
edible attractions, are almost art magazines. 

From the Crimea, with its climate of southern Italy, 
come splendid grapes, peaches, figs, pomegranates, 
melons, etc., while the northern provinces furnish all 
of the products of such climates, but preeminently 
applies that, in the perfection of their form and 
coloring, seem as if they must be strictly “hand¬ 
made.” 

The bulk windows, usually on a level with the 
sidewalk, are filled with an endless variety of beauti¬ 
fully “made dishes,” either ready to be cooked, or 
already done. Jellied meats, elaborately prepared birds, 
salads, salmi,—in short, a host of good or at least 
good-looking things to eat. Many of the finer shops 
have huge aquaria filled with fish, which are sold 
“on the hoof,” dipped out to order, and tossed into 
the buyer’s basket, “flops” and all. Mushrooms of 
many sorts and colors abound, and are very cheap— 
red, yellow, green ones—all much more solid than 
with us—indeed quite like meat, but not so delicate 
in flavor as our pinkish-brown ones. They are also 


Only Letters 95 

dried and strung for use in winter, and the markets 
are full of long “ boas," so made up. 

With all her lavish profusion for the rich, Russia 
offers but little to her millions of humble citizens,— 
the working people; indeed, how they manage to 
exist is marvelous. A good mechanic, carpenter, 
blacksmith, painter, etc., is able to earn, by working 
steadily, from $2.00 to $2.25 per week; and, as there 
are more than two hundred fast and holy days in the 
year when he may not (or will not) work, how he 
manages to preserve the alliance of body and soul is 
a marvel, and it is small wonder that the streets are 
filled with men in rags and tatters, or with clothes so 
patched as to suggest sartorial Mosaics. 

Their food is practically confined to sour black 
bread of rye and buckwheat, buckwheat mush, a 
small salted cucumber, and cabbage soup, into which 
latter, by way of enrichment and suggestion of meat, 
they pour sunflower-seed oil, often quite rancid. 
They also eat great quantities of pumpkin and sun¬ 
flower seeds roasted, these being the Slavic equiva¬ 
lent of the peanut, and sold at little booths every¬ 
where. 

Hard as is his lot, and poor and scanty as is his 
food, the Russian peasant, before commencing to 
eat, and after he has finished, always devoutly 
crosses himself thrice, and no man seems more con¬ 
tented with a lot, the hardness of which he has 
never realized by being able to compare it with 
anything better. 

The boy, as we know him, is either non-existent 
here, or it is the “close season” for him, as the real f 


96 Only Letters 

“puer” thing is never seen. In my daily walks 
abroad I do encounter no end of long gray or black 
overcoats, propelled by small objects with flat caps, 
topping grave little rosy-cheeked faces that march in 
solemn lines to and from school, with leather knap¬ 
sacks full of books; this represents the juvenile of 
the “ hupper-suckles.” Then I see yet other hosts 
of youthful replicas of the sheepskin-coated, shock¬ 
haired, booted, and too often tattered men, in the 
humble walks of life, many of them crowned with a 
huge leather doughnut, on which they carry any¬ 
thing, from a side of beef to a sideboard,—a sturdy 
lot are these young peasants. These two types of 
adolescent Russia fairly swarm, but the “real 
thing”—the whistling, yelling, “skylarking,” all- 
pervading, self-assertive boy, as we know him, is 
utterly non-existent, and, I might add, that, for the 
men into which such boys develop, Muscovy has no 
room or place—more’s the pity for her. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


St. Petersburg , November 13th, 1900. 
My dear M-: 

To my very great disappointment the 
famous Museum of Natural History is now closed 
for an entire rearrangement, and I was forced to 
abandon all hope of seeing its unique possessions. 
Upon learning this, Colonel H., our consul, and very 
good friend, than whom no kinder-hearted “ d/plo- 




97 


Only Letters 

mat" now “ dips,” gave me a letter from the “ Grand 
Panjandrum" of the Imperial “stuffed and pickled 
things" of “all the Russias" to the curator, request¬ 
ing that we be permitted to view the temporarily 
dethroned “elephant" in his (for the time being) 
dismantled “ native jungle." 

As a matter of abstract fact, it was a desire to in¬ 
terview a certain “elephant" that took us to the 
Museum. About twenty years ago (more or less), a 
man discovered in a clay cliff on the banks of the 
Lena, in Siberia, imbedded in ice, a mammoth en¬ 
tire, where he must have lain “frappe," for no one 
knows how many centuries. 

Upon reporting his precious find, an expedition 
was sent to exhume the monster, and, when he was 
uncovered, the flesh had been so perfectly preserved 
that the dogs ate of it, and a guard had to be placed 
to keep dogs and wolves from devouring it out¬ 
right. 

The entire animal was brought here, and its un¬ 
injured skeleton set up, hide, ears, etc., complete, 
and it is (as I had known for years) the only existing 
perfect specimen of this long-extinct “insect," all 
other collections being forced to simulate content¬ 
ment with odd bones, tusks, or teeth. 

This particular specimen, with some bits of an 
enormous Siberian rhinoceros—also extinct for ages, 
was the moving cause of my anxiety to visit the 
Museum; but, once inside, the curator, a most cour¬ 
teous gentleman, showed us quite through the vast, 
and, in many respects, unique collections, which 
were beautifully arranged, but were in such a state 


98 Only Letters 

of transition that 1 could well see why no visitors 
were admitted. 

We all take advantage of the short hours of com¬ 
paratively broad daylight (the sun’s face I have not 
seen for three weeks) to “ do ” various indoor sights. 
Yesterday two hours in the Winter Palace, which 
easily outclasses anything I have seen in any part of 
Europe, with a splendor not oppressive, and possess¬ 
ing the potential magnificence of artistic taste— 
backed by expenditure practically unlimited. I was 
particularly impressed with the floors, as a rule won¬ 
derfully inlaid with rare woods of contrasting colors, 
such as elaborate wreaths of conventional flowers of 
satin-wood let into mahogany, or black oak—-the 
darker wood often relieved by ivory and mother of 
pearl. In some rooms, the design which appeared 
on the ceiling in fresco or stucco, was repeated be¬ 
low on the floor in this intarsia, and with a finish and 
workmanship simply marvelous. 

Huge vases and tazzas of rhodonite, malachite, 
porthyry and jasper, were everywhere; indeed Rus¬ 
sia is the conceded habitat of the gigantic in vases, 
and the pathway of divers Tsars may be traced all 
over Europe by these costly native jars—donative. 

As a rule, malachite is the medium chosen to keep 
autocratic memory “green” in the royal collections 
of other lands. The vast dimensions of these apart¬ 
ments carry off a splendor and lavishness of decora¬ 
tion that, seen in some of the smaller palaces of other 
lands, is at once cloying and unimpressive. 

I will not bore you with any details of the concrete 
gorgeousness of this famous palace—why should I ? 


99 


Only Letters 

Suffice it to say that it exceeds any royal abiding 
place I have ever visited, and for further particulars 
you must await the first English-Baedeker on Russia, 
now “incubating," as I learn. 

Immediately adjoining the Winter Palace, is the 
Hermitage, the Louvre of Russia; and, as an art col¬ 
lection in the widest acceptation of that term, worthy 
to be classed with the “ facile princeps” Paris aggre¬ 
gation; but, in many respects, it is altogether unique 
and quite unlike any other treasure house in existence. 
Many of its collections defy adequate description, 
and, as I am blessed with abundant leisure, I am able 
to devote the ample time demanded to really see and 
enjoy its marvels. 

The building is of itself superb, originally founded 
by Catharine, who certainly did not add economy to 
her very considerable assortment of misdoings. It 
was afterward practically rebuilt at an enormous cost, 
to adapt it to its present use, and every department is 
splendidly and appropriately housed. 

The collection of pictures is superb and exceeding 
rich in my especial favorites—Van Dycks, Rem¬ 
brandts, and some of the great Dutchmen—Franz 
Hals, Peter de Hooch, and Hobbema, of whose land¬ 
scapes I never weary, with Durers and Holbeins, and 
all of the great Italians; but why catalogue? 

In sculpture also the showing is magnificent, 
headed, of course, by the famous Hermitage Venus, 
which I thought indeed a marvel. I saw in one of 
the smaller cabinets a remarkable illustration of the 
all-conquering genius of Michael Angelo. Some one, 
somewhere, sometime, laid a wager that he could 


L.cf C. 


IOO 


Only Letters 

not carve the properly proportioned figure of a man 
from a certain small and badly shaped block of 
marble; upon which, one of his friends accepted the 
challenge; the result is here shown, in the statue of a 
boy, crouching in a most unusual, but entirely possi¬ 
ble position. So runs the tale, at least, and so, be¬ 
yond question, could the boy, were his marvelous 
muscles not mere “ marmor.” 

As you are aware, I take great interest in weaponry 
of all sorts—in arms, armor, and the paraphernalia 
used to manufacture peace on the “European plan,” 
and here the collection is altogether unique by reason 
of the prodigal use of rare gems and gold in its 
decoration. 

In one small cabinet are gathered endless presents 
from various Tatar, Mongol (and, peradventure, 
“Mongrel”), tributary potentates to a long line of 
lavishly receptive Tsars, and many of these “trib¬ 
utes” are simply amazing. For instance: a saddle 
cloth of dark brown leather, around the edges of 
which was an Arabesque design about three inches 
wide, composed entirely of diamonds, while, at its 
two corners, the imperial arms are “ blazoned” in a 
“blaze” of superb stones, each eagle being about 
eight inches high. The red velvet saddle, that was 
to be used over this modest “cloth,” was thickly 
spread with a cavaire of pearls, among which glowed 
great rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, like the price¬ 
less plums in some inestimable cake. From the 
sides of this saddle, depended a couple of five-pound 
“coal hods” of solid gold, bespattered with yet 
other gems, to receive the feet of his “augustness” 


Only Letters ioi 

—it certainly was a " hoss rig ” not highly susceptible 
to plagiarism. 

The bridle of this expression of the unostentatious 
taste of a Bokharan Emir, was in keeping, with a huge 
diamond glowing at the intersection of divers straps 
on its frontlet; while above, on the horse’s crest, was 
a great spinel ruby as large as a walnut, drilled to re¬ 
ceive a slender plume, each spray of which ended in 
the quivering glitter of a small stone. Of course for 
the equine mouth there was another “bit” of pre¬ 
posterous extravagance. A scimeter from Turkestan, 
the solid gold scabbard of which was laid off for its 
entire length in panels of various sizes, each one 
filled with a single square-cut emerald; two great 
rubies glowing on the bands, to which the straps 
were attached, while of the sword, hilt, grip, and 
pommel, seemed fairly incandescent in the glow of 
huge gems of various colors. 

These are but single items in a large collection, so 
astonishing by the combined impact of a fabulous 
intrinsic value, and superb art workmanship, that one 
turns from it quite “ dazed,” and gladly applies the 
needed “gold cure” by a stroll through the long cor¬ 
ridors of prehistoric remains, where the moldering 
“dust” of the very “first families” is not auriferous. 

As I spend many hours in this vast treasure house, 
you are likely to hear more of the “Hermitage” in 
future fulminations. As ever yours, 


F. 


102 


Only Letters 


St. Petersburg, November 16th, ipoo. 
My dear M-: 

November 3d was a semi-holiday, the 
anniversary of the Tsar’s accession, and the streets 
gay with the national ensign, of white, blue and 
red (so they tri-colors here), with fine illuminations 
along the Nevsky and English Quay in the evening. 

A splendid special service was held at St. Isaac’s 
for the military and civil officers,—and incidentally 
for three “American Sovereigns," thanks to a card 
bearing the name of our most amiable consul,—done 
into very “choice," or at any rate, perfectly “Ad¬ 
missible" Russian. 

At ten o'clock we reached the foot of the steps cov¬ 
ered with red cloth and fringed with kazaks, and 
handed our card to an officer, who looked us over 
leisurely, and then waved us courteously past the 
waiting crowd. Once inside I captured a verger, and 
we were promptly placed inside the railing at one end 
of the holy doors, i. e., the high altar, and by great 
good fortune, close by the door through which was 
to flow a veritable torrent of sartorial splendors. A 
rouble-freighted glance falling upon another lackey, 
resulted in two low wooden stools upon which the 
three of us sat for three hours filled to overflowing 
with aural and visual wonders. The usual twilight 
of the grand temple soon gave place to a flood of soft 
light from four enormous chandeliers, the tall wax 
candles of which were ignited simultaneously by a 



Only Letters 103 

short acolyte, and a long continuous fuse which ran 
from wick to wick. 

Soon the choir filed in, and took their places on 
either side of the golden doors, perhaps fifty men and 
boys all in long gowns of a cheerful blue with a pair 
of absurd little yellow cloth, gold braided wings, 
sprouting from their shoulder-blades and held rigid 
and presumably ready for instant flight, by a stiff 
frame, probably of wire. The singing, much of it 
antiphonal, and the intoned readings of the seemingly 
interminable services were magnificent; of course un¬ 
accompanied, as organs are unknown in the Greek 
Church here. The voices, a gathering of the best 
from churches here, from Moscow, and other cities, 
ranged from the reedy, bird-like pipings of a lot of 
little rosy-cheeked blue cherubim, to tremendous 
bassi that made the echoes reverberate through the 
vaulting above like the rolling of thunder. It was at 
once most solemn and awe-inspiring. 

Long lines of priests in robes of gold and silver 
cloth, covered with wonderful embroideries, and 
wearing tall caps embroidered in pearls, pass to and 
fro, swinging censers from which the perfumed smoke 
arose in clouds, and with their carefully trained voices 
of amazing volume make the responses in chorus. 

To become a deacon in the Greek Church, a voice 
fit to command an army brigade under fire is a pre¬ 
requisite, so much importance is attached to vocal 
qualifications as a reader and singer. 

The Metropolitan, in a robe gorgeous beyond all 
others, wore a crown the gems of which fairly daz¬ 
zled one as he marched from side to side, his long 


io4 


Only Letters 

silver hair streaming down his golden back, and a 
like silvery beard descending to his waist in front, 
completed an impressive study in sacerdotal “ bi-met- 
alism.” He had a noble, benevolent face, and cer¬ 
tainly was a beautiful bit of senility. 

Incessant bursts of amazing music held the ear a 
willing captive, but our eyes were being regaled with 
a constant succession of moving pictures of absorb¬ 
ing interest. As already mentioned, we were placed 
where we could command the small entrance door, 
possibly thirty feet distant, and the flood of gorgeous¬ 
ness that flowed through that insignificant sluice was 
a “stream" to remember. It was most entertaining 
to watch the group of attendant lackeys conduct what 
was in point of fact, a grand “sartorial husking bee," 
and to see them shell out the various human “ pods " 
as they came streaming into the sanctuary to pray for 
their Tsar. From some fur-trimmed chrysalis, that 
barely cleared the floor, would emerge a grand duke 
in a perfect blaze of jewels, fed by orders, loops, rib¬ 
bons, rosettes, gold cords, embroidery, etc.,—simply 
“stunning." Then a like pearly-gray husk would 
yield a captain of Don Kazaks in a long skirted bed- 
gowny coat; chocolate, or red, white, or blue with 
silver cross-belts, and in the same metal most elab¬ 
orate and exquisite embroidery on breast and sleeves, 
and wearing high up on his left breast those beauti¬ 
fully wrought silver cartridge cases that are peculiar 
to the kazak. Hung from slender, silver embossed 
straps was a murderous looking dirk, and the long 
curved sword that these men handle so wonderfully. 
Dark of eyes, olive skinned, with the high cheek 


Only Letters 105 

bones of an “Ogallala" Sioux and crowned with a 
mop of jet black, oily hair, cut straight across the 
nape of his neck and with a peculiarly sullen satur¬ 
nine look,—this peacock, shorn of his “plumes" 
would in sooth be the veriest of “jackdaws." Per¬ 
haps the next one of these uniform gray coats, sheds 
a cuirassier of the life-guards; tall, slim, noble, young 
(many of this corps being boys of twenty), in a white 
tunic stiff with gold embroidery, from which descend 
dark blue legs vanishing into vast enameled boots, a 
long straight sabre; and carrying in his white gaunt- 
leted hand, a beautiful golden helmet, surmounted by 
a large silver eagle with spread wings. He certainly 
is a truly elegant affair, and is probably the son of 
some prince or nobleman. And so they came in a 
steady stream: officers, civil, military and naval, min¬ 
isters, court functionaries,—apparently everybody that 
was anybody, or had been made to seem so by some 
decorative tailor. 

After each new bit of magnificence had “peeled" 
it indulged in a furtive “ primp " or two, shook itself 
together, and passing close by the “American Board 
of Inspection," devoutly crossed itself and then the 
pavement in front of the high altar, and was quickly 
merged in the dazzling parterre of color and metal 
that stretched across the great body of the church. 
Perhaps certain court chamberlains were best entitled 
to the sartorial “gateau" by right of conquest, and 
by reason of costumes that were so purely golden 
that it seemed as if they must have been poured on 
in a fluid state and then “set"—“ in situ," or have 
been applied with a trowel in a sort of auriferous 


io6 Only Letters 

court “plaster.” Really 1 never saw clothing with 
such a slight alloy of visible cloth. Poor wretches, 
how they must have suffered in those long coats as 
heavy as armor! 

But all things come to an end, and anon those thun¬ 
ders of melody rolled away into the conserving niches 
of memory. The incense smoke floated up into 
space, and the bewinged ex-singers, big and little, 
“piled out ” in quite uncherubic haste, and were soon 
puffing cigarettes. Dazzling priests vanish, glittering 
officers are gray once more, and we, taking droskies 
from the clamoring mob are soon whirled away to 
No. 5 Troitskaya, quite “fit” and ready for one of its 
bounteous lunches. Apropos of gastronomy, we 
constantly encounter new, and to us, unusual dishes, 
many of them delicious, as your Slav of quality is 
ever a “ very valiant trencherman.” A soup of beets 
with clotted sour cream, another of kidneys; cabbage- 
pie,—delicious, but alas! a favorite fodder of the 
“night mare"; rice pie, exceedingly delicate and ap¬ 
petizing; mushroom pie, scarce distinguishable from 
one of a very rich meat; mountain ash-berries, pre¬ 
served,—very piquant; a small salted cucumber, 
sliced, and by those to “the manor born” usually 
dipped into honey when eaten; a sort of soft caramel 
flavored with wild cranberries, etc., etc., are among 
the constantly recurring edible novelties. When it 
comes to breadstuffs, the variety is great, and the 
quality delicious; and the butter as a rule above re¬ 
proach. Within the enormous span of an empire 
reaching from the Arctic Circle to an Italy or Greece, 
in the sunny Crimea, Russia has an abundant and 


Only Letters 107 

all embracing menu, and the “bon vivant” is an in¬ 
evitable result of such a varied environment. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


St. Petersburg , November 19th, 1900. 
My dear M-: 

The sky is ever dull and leaden now, 
and the air damp and raw, indeed I’ve seen the 
sun but twice since October 5th, once for a half day 
and again for a couple of hours. 

A few days back, we went out to Petershof at 
the mouth of the Neva, opposite Cronstadt, where a 
creep of forty-five minutes by train brought us to 
this famous palace on which Peter and his successors 
lavished years of labor and fortunes of money. We 
first drove to the office of this charming summer re¬ 
sort to encounter our first fall of snow, and the an¬ 
nouncement that the palace was closed for the season, 
— i. e ., that “summer” was now “officially” past. 
This was a great disappointment, but we made the 
best of it and drove over the frozen roads of the park 
and grounds, which even under such adverse con¬ 
ditions were exquisite, and seemed to have almost 
exhausted out of doors decorative features, it must, 
indeed, be a fairy-land in summer. 

In open droskies and minus adequate wraps, we 
found the excursion so rigorous, that we were glad 
to reach the Samson Hotel, and to restore circulations 
with small potations of a liquor that the Philistinic 




108 Only Letters 

“bete-noire,” would certainly have approved, the 
native vodka, a liquor, made from rye, or potatoes. 
This with the strong hot bouillon—ever ready in a 
Russian inn, soon raised depressed temperatures, 
after which a duplication of the morning’s creep 
brought us home just a trifle crestfallen, I must admit. 

One day last week to the Monastery of Saint Alex¬ 
ander Nevsky, where in a splendid Cathedral is the 
famous silver tomb and jewel bedecked shrine of this 
favorite son of the Greek Church Militant. The 
special attraction was a grand choral service in honor 
of the famous composer, Tschaikowski, it being the 
anniversary of his death, and the music rendered ex¬ 
clusively of his composition. As in the recent service 
at St. Isaac’s, various choirs contributed their finest 
voices, some coming up from Moscow—and the music 
rendered was quite past words of mine—magnificent, 
and I was abundantly well repaid for two hours 
of standing in a dense crowd, and constantly 
striving to escape the fatty favors of a huge cande¬ 
labrum that distributed such with a continuity that 
added little to the “gaiety of nations.” 

Within this huge fortress-monastery, surrounded 
on its three sides by a wide deep moat is the fine 
Cathedral, seven other churches, endless chapels, 
cloisters, dormitories for the monks, etc., and a 
cemetery remarkable alike for its extent, and to alien 
eyes at least, its peculiarities. In this cemetery are laid 
to rest the oldest and most aristocratic familiesof Russia 
and their tombs and the various appliances for their 
comfortable visitation,certainly are remarkable. Many 
plots were covered by highly ornate houses of iron and 


Only Letters 109 

glass with carpeted floors, regularly upholstered 
chairs and lounges, tables, etc., grouped around a 
small altar and above it the never absent icon with its 
lamp in many instances trimmed and burning. Arti¬ 
ficial flowers of the most obvious artifice, and in glar¬ 
ing colors seemed to cover everything and these with 
long strings of the red, blue, green, purple, gold and 
silver-glass eggs, which at Easter are hung on the 
tombs made this densely crowded city of the dead 
resemble a peasant fair, or fete. Some few of the 
tombs were artistically tine, but the prevalence of such 
masses of crude color on every hand lent a cheap and 
tawdry look to their immediate surroundings and 
quite robbed them of their intrinsic impressiveness. 
The Greek church in so far as color may do so, con¬ 
stantly strives to rob the king of terrors of the gloom 
inseparable from his sway. 

Coffins are always of bright colors, among people 
of means usually covered with a gold tinsel cloth, or 
one of purple or violet, the poor striving after the 
gold effect with coffins painted a vivid yellow. 

All of us a few days back to the royal stables and 
carriage depot, the latter a wonderful showing of the 
vehicular prodigality of Peter and Paul, of Catharine 
and Anne, and of divers Nicholas’ and Alexanders’, 
many of the state coaches having the imperial arms 
and portraits set in jewels on their doors. The col¬ 
lection naturally abounded in sleighs and sledges of 
every sort, size and degree of peculiarity, the crown¬ 
ing freak a sledge built for Catharine’s frequent drives 
to Moscow, was practically a room, with a row of 
windows all around it and with a table running down 


I IO 


Only Letters 

the centre surrounded by seats for twenty-eight 
people. It was upholstered in dark green cloth and 
was a huge affair that must have required twenty 
horses to draw it. The harness rooms seemed to 
contain about everything that could be superimposed 
upon horse-flesh and many really wonderful things. 
A set of state harness for twelve horses so entirely 
covered with turquoises that at a short distance it 
looked like blue enamel, this on the huge white, or 
jet black horses we saw iater, must be well calcu¬ 
lated to foster the pangs of envy in a Barnum, or a 
Bailey. Of saddles the showing was vast and bar 
“Mutton,” seemed to cover every possibility, many 
of them gifts from eastern sovereigns and princes, 
and rich with gold and jewels. Various Emirs of 
Bokhara had for generations sent horse trappings that 
by reason of their barbaric splendor contrasted 
strangely with a Texas “Cow Puncher’s ” saddle with 
its coiled lariat on the high pommel and the serpen¬ 
tine “quirt” hanging ready for application to an ob¬ 
streperous “ broncho.” 

In the stables we were shown about two hundred 
horses of many strains (all of the various palaces 
have their independent stables), Arabs from Bokhara 
and Egypt, all Russian breeds of course, English 
hacks, and hunters, German, Austrian, Siberian trios 
of every weight and color, for the royal “troikas” 
on wheels or runners. Giant coach horses for State 
occasions snowy white with tails that reached the 
ground combed and crimped to make them wavy. 
We were shown the three favorite mounts of the 
Tsar, a black, a brown, and a golden sorrel with 


111 


Only Letters 

» 

white feet, superb creatures all, of course. The head 
groom had been to Chicago in '93, with a lot of 
horses belonging to the Grand Duke Vladimir and 
well earned his rouble by being very civil and show¬ 
ing us all there was to see. 

Coming out from the stables we were surprised to 
see a small patch of blue sky and to catch a glimpse 
of the same old “sun” we have “always taken,” 
but in ten minutes both had vanished and again the 
sodden dome of lead prevailed. Six hours of 
sunshine in six weeks is not much to those who 
know our brilliant autumnal, and early winter 
days. 

The roughness of many things here is remarkable, 
take for instance, vehicles. The streets are constantly 
blocked by long lines of one horse carts and wagons 
so roughly built, that they seem like the work of 
semi-civilized men. For the most part of round 
poles, quite innocent of paint, and with wheels that 
revolve in such a diversity of directions that it is a 
wonder how they continue on the axles at all. I do 
not recall having seen a single really neat well ap¬ 
pointed business wagon, cart or truck, in Russia, and 
the drivers in their greasy fur caps, sheepskin, tu- 
lups, and with their long unkempt hair, flowing 
beards, and grimy faces, look like the hardened vil¬ 
lains which they certainly are not. They are how¬ 
ever, very quarrelsome among themselves usually 
over the constant collisions resulting from crowded 
streets and vodka saturations, and when one of these 
enraged jehus has called his adversary “Yellow Eyes,” 
he has exhausted the possibilities of current “ cuss” 


112 Only Letters 


words, and the force of Slavic opprobrium can no 
further go. 

As ever yours, 


F. 


St. Petersburg , November 24th, 1900. 
My dear M-: 

Soldiers everywhere possess an unfail¬ 
ing interest for me, and here they fairly swarm. 
An infantry regiment has just passed by, en route to 
a new station so noiselessly in their soft-soled, heel¬ 
less boots that but for an occasional clank of mess 
tins one would not dream of the near presence of 
twelve hundred items of such splendid “powder 
food.” Tall, raw boned, powerful young fellows, 
all with close cropped hair, and as a rule beardless, 
or with shaven faces and usually laughing and talk¬ 
ing in low tones as they march, in striking contrast 
to the sullen and often vicious looking Kazak cavalry. 
This was a regular line regiment wearing above those 
soft wrinkled leg boots, full baggy trousers of blue, 
tucked into those boot tops, long comfortable brown 
overcoats of heavy coarse frieze with the deep soft 
cloth detached hood with its long ends caught under 
the cross belts. On their backs the most compact 
and convenient knapsack I ever saw, which opens 
down the centre like a “ grip” and so hung that its 
entire weight is thrown upon the shoulders and kept 
out of the small of the back thus sparing them cer¬ 
tain aches and pains that 1 well knew of in the sum- 




Only Letters 113 

mer of “ ’63.” On their heads a visorless “ pork-pie ” 
of astrakan with the usual brass eagle and carrying 
with an autonomous variety, that would convulse 
Berlin, rifles with long slender thorn-like bayonets. 
These troops march with a freedom that while dis¬ 
senting from the toy-like German rigidity, stops 
well short of “ slouchy ” and reminded me by its 
swing and “elan” of one of our seasoned army 
of the Potomac regiments, away back in the 
“sixties.” 

About two hundred thousand men are drawn for 
service each year, I think only unmarried ones, and 
their total pay is about one dollar and five cents per 
annum, think of it! thirty-five kopeks paid every 
two months. Officers also are paid the merest pit¬ 
tances on which to keep up the fine appearances that 
they certainly do, so much for the constant drain of 
a vast standing army, plus a never standing debt to 
sustain it. The Russian peasant looks upon service 
in the army simply as his bounden duty to his “ Lit¬ 
tle Father,” the Tsar, and cheerfully devotes those 
years when he might be commencing a career, how¬ 
ever humble, to striding up and down before the 
stuccoed palace of some prince, or potentate, or if 
need be, staining with the blood of his loyal heart the 
snowy heights of a Shipka Pass, or peradventure, 
freezing at his post in the driving snows of some re¬ 
mote wilderness of that “Little Father’s” vast do¬ 
main. The attitude of the line officers to their men 
is at once unique and delightful, and as a rule, seems 
to be that of a kindly friendship. Poor Ivan freely 
brings his domestic cares, his joys and his sorrows to 


114 Only Letters 

his captain or lieutenant, to ask his aid and advice 
and rarely does so in vain. 

When passing a barrack yard, one often sees a lot 
of these big stalwart boys, cap in hand, clustering 
around an immaculate lieutenant all deeply engaged 
in an earnest talk on some topic of general interest. 
Just fancy such advances made by private soldiers to 
one of those beer-sodden scarred faced martinets that 
so frequently disgrace humanity and the German 
eagle under whose autocratic pinions, downright 
brutality is systematically condoned. 

A few days since we met a company of infantry 
marching across country for exercise. Officers and 
men all singing lustily and the lively music of some 
folk-song as it came over the snow covered fields 
was eloquent of the true comradeship that exists in 
the vast army that serves the Little Father. This 
chorus singing is very common throughout the Rus¬ 
sian army and even those saturnine, saddle-hued 
Kazaks when on the march drone the weird and usu¬ 
ally mournful songs of their native steppes and moun¬ 
tains. 

The devotion of the Slav to tea drinking is at once 
profound and universal, as prince and beggar con¬ 
jointly pay their absorbing homage to the omnipres¬ 
ent gurgling samovar. 

Everywhere are dingy little shops reeking with stale 
tobacco and cabbage soup, constantly packed with 
unsavory throngs who cluster around small rough 
tables, each group with a large pot of hot water and a 
small one of herculean tea. These they commingle 
until a very weak decoction is secured and this they 


Only Letters 115 

consume in astonishing quantities from the tall glass 
tumbler that throughout Russia represents the “cup 
that cheers ” other nations. 

Almost every bank, factory, or business office of 
importance has its “ Tetrarch,” whose business it is to 
brew and serve tea “ ad libitum,” throughout the day 
and in some establishments gallons are consumed, 
much of it delicious. 

Served in these tall narrow glasses, boiling hot 
with a “flotsam” of lemon, it is carried around on 
trays to the desks of all employees, with many of 
whom it seems to be an unsolved problem, whether 
the pen or teaspoon be the mightier weapon, so much 
time do they waste over the fragrant decoction. One 
rarely calls upon a banker, or merchant of standing 
at his office, without having a glass of this beverage 
offered him, and if the caller be a connoisseur in that 
accredited fomenter of gossip, he will constantly 
recognize teas that have cost ten gold dollars the 
pound. 

Yesterday to the Artillery Museum in the grim 
fortress of Peter and Paul across the Neva, where I 
found a remarkable gathering embracing many very 
early essays at breech loading guns and multi-fire 
engines of many sorts. Peter, that phenomenal 
blend of savant, and savage, of butcher and bene¬ 
factor, now carving an ivory crucifix and now with 
the same hand slaying his own son, used various 
types of breech loaders and revolving guns that fired 
volleys on the “instalment plan,” as the nearest 
approach to the desired simultaneousness. I saw 
there a brass field gun with a square “bore” (if any- 


116 Only Letters 

thing perfectly “square," and not human may be 
termed a “bore"), from which stones, nails, scraps of 
iron, in short hard garbage of any kind was dis¬ 
seminated to the detriment of those in focus. Savage 
that he certainly was, Peter was nevertheless greatly 
beloved by his long-suffering people, and with 
abundant reason, as he left nothing undone that he 
could compass to advance Russia, and what he 
believed to be her true interests. Certainly no man 
ever better merited the prefix “ Great ” than he. In 
his vices Peter was simply of his day and generation, 
but in his virtues, very far in advance of an age when 
continuous well-doing and absolute despotic power, 
coalesced no better than they do now. 

The custodian at the arsenal, quickly detecting my 
nationality, showed me among other trophies a lot of 
arms, standards, etc., captured from the English 
during the Crimean War, and when I asked him if he 
had any “American trophies," he replied in what 
was meant for English, Ah! no we do not ever 
quarrel with America. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


St. Petersburg , November 27th, 1900. 
My dear M-: 

Winter has now fairly set in and the 
detached masses of ice that block the Neva from 
shore to shore, have become a solid field of great 
cakes piled up in wild confusion. The mercury has 




Only Letters 117 

not fallen below 15 0 above zero, but the cold is very 
penetrating, and seems to chill the very marrow in 
one s bones. It is amusing to note the wonderful be- 
mufflings of the people, the poor assuming all sorts 
of distortions, with basic layers of sheepskin waist¬ 
coats, coats, and yet other outside coats, and wraps, 
while the rich are simply submerged in their long 
fur-lined coats, with enormous collars, turned up, 
and tall fur caps pulled down, until the wearer’s face 
is quite invisible. 

I met another fine regiment this morning on the 
march to a distant station, each man laden down with 
cook tins, bright copper teacups, canteens, and filled 
haversacks, and each carrying one-half of a small 
tent, and a short-handled entrenching spade. The 
fine, big fellows looked thoroughly happy and com¬ 
fortable in their long frieze coats and woollen mittens, 
and they chattered and laughed merrily, as they 
stepped out briskly over a new fall of snow, to the 
music of a lot of bugles and the same little “snarl¬ 
ing ” brass drums I saw in Berlin. A long train of 
baggage and forage wagons followed, and last of all 
a field battery of soup kettles, in full blast, consisting 
of huge caldrons mounted on wheels similar to those 
we use for asphalt paving work, but these with 
limbers in front, in which I fancy the soup “stock” 
was carried, which latter must be of a super- 
strenuous nature to judge by a whiff of the steam 
that was escaping from the seething kettles, suggest¬ 
ing by its aroma a puree—of Turkey buzzard,—it 
doubtless was cabbage and some kind of salt meat. 

A typical Russian snow-storm still holds off, much 


118 Only Letters 

to the disappointment of E. and H., who are eagerly 
waiting for sledge rides, tobogganing on the famous 
ice hills, and to seeing the city at its very best, for 
which a heavy fall of snow is a necessity. We have 
had a number of light snows, which in their aggregate 
furnish excellent sleighing, but as stated, a heavy fall 
has not yet occurred. The sledges used here are so 
very small and low, as to be quite unlike anything in 
the sleigh line with us, and they are “ par excellence " 
the feature of a Russian city winter, and as no bells 
are used they rush along without a sound and vastly 
multiply the dangers of street crossing. At night the 
fine private sleds have electric lights on the ends of 
the shafts, or pole, and often on the wooden arch, or 
“ douga ” so universally used. The common drosky 
sledges are driven furiously, and the only hint at their 
near presence is the loud yells of the muffled, vodka- 
soaked isvoschiks, as a bunch of ten or fifteen of 
them swoop down upon you, or whirl around a 
corner like a tornado. These sleds have no backs or 
arms to the seats, which latter are so shallow that it 
is difficult to retain one’s position, especially when 
whirling suddenly around a corner. In consequence 
of this element of danger, it is quite the correct thing 
when riding in a sledge, for the gentleman to place 
his arm around the waist of his fair (or at least 
female) companion, and one passes scores of couples 
with ladies of all ages being so “cared for," but I 
noticed that extra precautions were taken when 
youth and beauty were in presumable jeopardy. 

Mechanics, as already stated, work for a mere 
pittance, but masons, bricklayers, and carpenters. 


Only Letters 119 

when presumably at work, can give “ points ” to any 
of our workmen in the gentle arts of loafing and 
“ putting in time, ” and the length of time required to 
complete a building of any sort, is preposterous. 
The men work leisurely for an hour or two, and then 
“knock off” for a smoke, or to brew tea, several 
times during the day, and against such doings the 
“boss” protests in vain. All of the tools I have seen 
in use, /. e ., of Russian make, are surprisingly rough 
and crude, especially axes, hatchets, and saws, but 
despite such drawbacks the Slav woodworker far 
excels those of most other nations, and his skill in 
measuring with the eye, and in handling the small, 
clumsy, top-heavy axe, is simply amazing, and in 
really good work his joints are faultless. 

Last night, we all went to a Peasants' Bazaar, held 
in a series of large halls, for several weeks each win¬ 
ter. There we found a most interesting gathering of 
odd and attractive wares from all parts of the country, 
crude and clever white wood toys made by children, 
baskets and sandals of plaited bass-wood bark, 
musical instruments, pottery, carved and turned 
woodwork, sweets, and cakes, good, bad and 
dubious, and a really remarkable showing of em¬ 
broidered linen, and cotton stuffs; laces; drawn work, 
etc., much of it altogether unique in design and 
treatment, and as certain experts, who were of our 
company (and purchased liberally), affirmed were 
astonishingly cheap. 

As the cold increases the sun comes out occasion¬ 
ally and last night stars were visible for several hours 
and late this afternoon as we strolled along the Eng- 


120 


Only Letters 

lish quay, a splendid broad avenue on the Neva 
which is now a solid mass of ice hummocks, the 
gilded domes and countless spires on its further shore 
fairly glowed in the lurid rays of an almost unob¬ 
scured sun as it sank behind the grim fortress of St. 
Peter and St. Paul. The two movable bridges were 
taken up long since, and soon two lines of “ trams ” 
will cross the ice in those semi-occasional crawls that 
here represent running. 

This is the birthday of the Dowager Empress, and 
again the streets are gay with the white, blue, and 
red, and most of the shops are closed until noon. 
The greatest shopping time here seems to be Sunday 
afternoon; no shops open until noon of that day when 
they and the streets are thronged, and the provision 
and food shops especially are overrun with patrons. 

Yesterday a really heavy fall of snow, and at once 
the few lingering wheels vanish and sleds were 
darting about everywhere. In the afternoon H. and I 
took a sled with a gay gray nag, and drove to the 
“Island,” one of forty that the city covers, but this 
particular one a famous park and summer resort, a 
sort of “blend” of Willow Grove and the Wissa- 
hickon drive. The snow lay deep on its fine broad 
roads and long avenues of great firs and hemlocks 
laden with fleecy wreaths, as with the horse on a 
dead run, we face the keen breezes from the Gulf of 
Finland and a glorious sunset and we quite forget 
the soggy, sunless weeks so recently endured. But 
the twilight is falling now and it is too dark to see to 
write longer, so I must bring this to a close. 

As ever yours, F. 


Only Letters 


121 


St. Petersburg, December yth, ipoo. 
My dear M-: 

A few nights since we took another 
drive, under a full moon to the Island, this time in 
a “troika,” the “swellest” of swell sleighs. Of its 
three horses, the one between the shafts usually trots, 
while the two outsiders run, but when excited by the 
yells of the izvostchik all three break into a dead run 
with their unreined heads hanging low, and we 
seem to fairly fly through a fine spray of cast up 
snow over the wide, hard-beaten roads. 

Russian harness is made of light, very narrow 
strips of a leather as strong as rawhide, and as pliant 
as calfskin, and these strips are literally covered with 
small silver chains and embossed ornaments, which 
on the coal black “ orloffs ” commonly driven to a 
“troika,” is very showy and handsome. The 
“troika,” a low, overgrown sledge for six persons 
has wide spreading wings of gay carpet (usually 
with an electric lamp on each), which partially pro¬ 
tect the riders from the stream of snow thrown back 
by the flying hoofs, but enough passes those barriers 
to make one’s hair and clothing gleam as if powdered 
over with tiny brilliants. It was a glorious night 
when we started under a “ full ” moon and behind a 
driver, I should say in the “fourth quarter,” who 
swept around the corners of streets thronged with 
sledges with loud cries of “beregees,” i. e. “look 
sharp there,” but luckily escaped running into any¬ 
thing. When three of these troikas try to pass each 
other on a road none too wide for two, each driver 



122 


Only Letters 

shaking his reins, and yelling like a demon and the 
nine foam-flecked horses almost frantic, there is a 
noticeable lack of repose, indeed the situation borders 
on excitement. Many of these drivers if “ remem¬ 
bered ” with a little extra “tea-money ” will sing folk¬ 
songs in plaintive minor keys, often with excellent 
voices, but of course, only when jogging along 
slowly. When racing with rivals, every atom of 
lung power is employed to urge on the spirited teams 
(whips are never used), with the affectionate terms I 
alluded to in a former letter. 

I crossed the Neva yesterday on a board-walk five 
feet wide, laid upon the ice, which walk is constantly 
swept and sprinkled with fine gravel, and on either 
side of it was a line of cast iron lamp-posts set upon 
the ice, each with a large oil lamp. Similar walks 
are located at various points on the river, and wagon- 
tracks regularly laid out, and to prevent their obliter¬ 
ation by the constantly recurring snows, small ever¬ 
green trees are planted along the two sides of such 
roads. This is also done along the fine driving road 
laid out on the river down to Cronstadt, fifteen miles 
distant, this a favorite drive in the winter. 

The Russian police attend strictly to “ business 
which does not include ” running primaries as in one 
blessed country 1 wot of, where at least certain 
phases of its Freedom might well be spelled with a 
small “ F.” They see that every one promptly cleans 
the snow from “foment” his place, be it palace, 
stable, or vacant lot, and that the footwalk be kept 
sprinkled with coarse gravel, which by the way, is 
most unpleasant to walk over. They keep an eagle 


123 


Only Letters 

eye on the dense tide of street traffic and constantly 
break up those processions of carts that seem endless 
in their length and perpetuity, by uplifting a white 
gloved hand that is quite as potent as the blue and 
white banded cuff of the monarch of “ May-Fair." 
They are all picked men, tall, powerful, noticeably 
handsome chaps in well-cut uniforms of black, and 
are armed with a large revolver, fastened to a heavy 
red cord that passes around the neck, and reaches 
down to the holster on the left hip, and they also 
wear a short curved sabre, hung as usual “ wrong 
side up," i. e. t with the supporting straps on its con¬ 
vex side. 

Apropos of swords, about every third man here 
wears one of some sort (or at least so it seems), 
from the little boy students of various military schools 
up to officials small, or of a greatness actual or in¬ 
ferred. 

I met a brass band the other morning in a guise 
that strongly hinted at the rigors of a winter in 
Muscovy, from the fact that their instruments were 
comfortably clad in a dark brown stuff that resembled 
“jaeger." It certainly looked odd, but such “cloth¬ 
ing" may help the rendition of warm “airs" and 
serve to temper the “winds of forward marches." 
Along like precautionary lines, all street-car handles, 
and the iron ladders leading to their upper decks 
were wrapped with woolen list some time since, as 
otherwise they could not to be touched barehanded 
when the mercury drops to 15 0 or 20° below zero. 

Our sojourn here is rapidly nearing its close, as we 
expect to leave for Moscow in a week or so, 


124 Only Letters 

making the journey an all night run in very com¬ 
fortable sleepers. 

By common consent Moscow is one of the most 
picturesque and interesting cities in Europe, and we 
are all anticipating great pleasure from its curious 
blending of the distinctly Asiatic with the regular 
European features, and in the motley gatherings of 
strange-folk, its bazaars, etc. Of icons, those sacred 
pictures which are objects of downright adoration, 
there are millions upon millions in Russia, and they 
are met with in every shop, hotel, room, dwelling, 
railroad station, and even in the lowest type of grog¬ 
shops. In the Winter Palace, each one of its seven 
hundred rooms (we failed to see some six hundred 
and seventy-five of them), has its icon. Often in 
shops and places of constant resort, a little oil lamp 
usually of red glass burns in front of the picture, 
which as a rule is placed across the corner of the room 
near the ceiling, but in most places, they are simply a 
bit of mere furnishing and quite unheeded. At 
Eastertide, when the working man goes off on a pro¬ 
longed “drunk,” in any of the low taverns, the mild 
eyed Virgin with the Holy Child in her arms and 
with the flickering lamp shining on the enameled tin 
of which the cheaper icons are made, looks down upon 
the filthy sawdust covered floor, upon which equally 
filthy moujiks are lying like swine, sleeping off the 
vodka upon which the earnings of months have been 
squandered, while wife and children starve in some 
cheerless hovel of the suburbs, or near-by village. 

As ever yours, 


F. 


Only Letters 


125 


St. Petersburg , ‘December 10th, 1900. 
My dear M-: 

Yesterday I paid my final visit to the 
Hermitage in whose magnificent collections I have 
simply reveled for the past six weeks, and with which 
I have become quite familiar. Attracted by the mar¬ 
velous exhibition of handicraft, rather than the 
mere richness of its priceless gems, I constantly 
stroll into the little cabinet I wrote of, where the im¬ 
perial gifts from Asiatic potentates are shown. To 
look around that little room suggests a Slavic- 
“ Aladdin ” equipped with a high speed emery-wheel 
for the “rubbing” of a perennial supply of the 
lamps of sudden acquisition! 

Apropos of collections, in the Winter Palace next 
door, is a very remarkable one, made by various 
Tsars on their travels through the realm. When the 
Tsar visits any town in his vast empire, on crossing 
its “threshold” he is met by a delegation of head¬ 
men, and then and there presented by the mayor with 
“bread and salt” agreeable to an ancient oriental 
custom, the bread on a platter, and the salt in a 
curious little coffer, or chest of a practically uniform 
pattern. These gifts are of every degree of beauty 
and cost. Platters of pure gold set with gems, plain 
gold plates, silver, enameled work, bronze, gun 
metal, in short, of an endless variety of costly 
materials, and of exquisite art workmanship and the 
little salt chests, of a corresponding elegance. After 
each “fresh” arrival has been duly “salted” and 
“ breaded ” he “ loots ” the plate, “pinches ” the box, 



126 


Only Letters 

and moves on to the next “ baiting stop,” to look up 
“ what’s doing” there in the hardware homage 
“line.” When he gets back to one of his various 
“ homes ” some rainy day during the “ close season ” 
for Tsars, he tacks up these trophies on his walls for 
us to see and marvel at. To judge by the vast ac¬ 
cumulations of these imperial “ trip checks ”—(there 
are hundreds of them), some of the Tsars must have 
journeyed oft and have “ turned down ” no souvenirs 
“ en route.” 

As we live quite a long distance from the Hermit¬ 
age, I frequently do not go home to lunch, but ad¬ 
journ to an “Automat” close by on the “Nevsky” 
to take “chances” in a most entertaining edible lot¬ 
tery. It is the only “Automat” here, and the one 
and only place in this great city, where money, i. e., 
my money “talks ” Russian. I follow the long lines 
of glass-covered viands, most daintily displayed, scan 
the unknown dishes, scent certain especially insistent 
cheeses, and then end by dropping my ten kopeck- 
piece into the slot “foment” the queerest-looking 
edible in sight, and am often rewarded by something 
extra toothsome. Here you get caviare at its best, 
not that seeming solution of bead-pincushions in 
train oil, that is sold in stingy little pots in the land of 
the free. Here it is the genuine, and fresh “ Astra- 
kan ” from the Volga, of a pale silvery gray, exceed¬ 
ing delicate in flavor and so appetizing that a man 
fresh, or “ peradventure a trifle stale,” from a couple 
of hours of “canvas” backs, or sculpture, or who 
has “done” his ethnographic half-mile of Etruscan 
vases, or dessicated ancestor can wreck a rouble with 


127 


Only Letters 

a contentment not easily computable and may find 
himself quite ready to condone even Esau’s short¬ 
sighted appraisement of comestibles. 

I also dropped into St. Isaac’s, for a last look at 
that grand interior with its immense columns of 
lapis lazuli, and malachite, on either side of the 
golden doors, the dazzling icons, and never absent 
prostrating worshipers. 

The portico surrounding the cathedral with its 
wonderful columns of polished pink Finnish granite, 
is a beautiful sight since the weather has grown cold, 
as these huge shafts are constantly coated with a thin 
veil of hoar frost, which in the strong sunlight 
glistens like untold millions of tiny diamonds. 

Dinner most acceptably impends now, so I will 
bring this to a close, and if nothing goes amiss, 
when you next hear from me, I shall be in Moscow, 
the Holy City of Ancient Muscovy. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Moscow, December 16th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

By a most luxurious, but very deliberate 
train, we arrived in this, the ever revered and one time 
great metropolis of all the Russias, after a night in 
which exceeding comfort and its antithesis were 
strangely commingled. The sleeping compartments 
were extra large (all the principal Russian railroads 




128 


Only Letters 

are broad guage), fresh, and attractive, but all 
through the night our neighbors, male and female, 
smoked the vilest cigarettes, which sadly vitiated the 
limited supply of lung food, and let me here state, 
that if there be degrees of offense in any stench, so 
all embracingly foul as the cigarette, the ones com¬ 
monly smoked here easily win the blue ribbon. The 
washing facilities were laughably inadequate, con¬ 
sisting of three huge circular basins (any one of 
which would hold the entire supply of water) with¬ 
out plug or stopper. Every initiated traveler here, 
carries a supply of large corks to discount that serious 
lack, we using wads of newspaper. Above these 
China-ponds, three little metal reservoirs wept through 
“ spaghetti ’’-like pipes over their preposterous insuf¬ 
ficiency, while the beautiful damask towels were so 
minute as to suggest the possibilities of their sudden 
loss by an unguarded inspiration. 

We parted with our very kind friends, the K.-C.’s, 
left Petersburg in the slush of a very unusual rain- 
gendered thaw, and crept into Moscow, deep covered 
with a fall of dry, fleecy snow, and with an air so 
keen that beards and moustaches were quickly draped 
with icicles. 

After the usual chaffering with a horde of ruffianly 
drosky men with whom a special bargain must first 
be driven before you can be, to any point, we wound 
through a tortuous maze of streets swarming with 
sledges to the Moskovski, Traktir, i. e ., the Grand 
Hotel Moscow. Here we were assigned large and 
dirty rooms on its fifth unsavory floor, from the win¬ 
dows of which, however, the panorama spread before 


Only Letters 129 

us superabundantly compensated for the grime and 
dinginess of its view-point. 

On the further side of the wide street loomed the 
grim battlemented walls of the famous Kremlin, 
which circles with its mile and a quarter of masonry, 
so much of the past history and present splendors of 
Imperial Russia. Originally a fortress, as its Tartar 
name denotes, within those lofty, massive walls, 
adorned with eighteen picturesque towers and pierced 
by five available gates, each one of itself a study in the 
quaint vagaries of mediaeval architecture, are gath¬ 
ered cathedrals and churches, palaces, treasury, mon¬ 
asteries, arsenals, military headquarters, etc. 

It is the focal point of sacred and secular Moscow, 
and weeks might here be spent among its wonders 
of architecture and its amazing collections of priceless 
treasures. The Kremlin has been partially destroyed 
by fire several times in the past five hundred years of 
its blood-soaked history, and its present walls were 
erected, or at least “revised” and “corrected,” by 
Italian engineers, who have thereon repeated a curious 
cresting, like the forked tail of a fish, identical with 
some I noticed in Florence on the walls of certain 
grim Ghibelline strongholds. 

In the treasury, actually a miscellaneous museum 
of fabulous richness, we spent a morning amid bar¬ 
baric, semi-barbaric and civilized splendors quite past 
any adequate description. In one cabinet devoted to 
the discarded pomps of long-since disintegrated 
despots, were numerous crowns of the earlier Ts^rs, 
many of them with a band of sable fur encircling 
the brow, above which were massive bands of gold 


130 


Only Letters 

studded with enormous gems; many of them uncut, 
and so merely hinting at an actual value that finely 
cut stones so clearly assert. Several of these early 
crowns were finished at the top with a huge ruby 
drilled to receive a small white plume, the sprays of 
which were tipped with small gems. Others were 
tall conical caps of beaten gold like beehives, on 
which “bees,” in the guise of great jewels, had 
seemingly alighted at will. Then there were thrones 
entirely covered with beaten gold, thickly inlaid with 
gems at random, and without apparent design, be¬ 
yond enormous outlay, a sort of jeweled recklessness, 
or priceless “rash,” others of carved ivory, and sev¬ 
eral splendidly wrought wooden state chairs of recent 
date. With these, a great collection of orbs and 
sceptres, of jewel-laden robes, and in brief a vast 
accumulation of the costly baubles of a royalty rooted 
in centuries of the despotic ruling of a vast domain 
of incomputable wealth. In this room also is shown 
the paraphernalia used at the last coronation. 

The Emperor (so all Russians speak of the Tsar) 
wore an ordinary general's uniform under his ermine- 
lined mantle of cloth of gold, and the empress a dress 
of cloth of silver which may have been splendid then, 
but which is now so dull and tarnished as to resemble 
sheet-zinc, and to suggest a plumber as the only be¬ 
fitting tiring maid for her Imperial Majesty. 

Here, also, divers donative Emirs of Bokhara have 
sent an infinity of strictly “high-class” horse furni¬ 
ture, notably two saddles for the strenuous Catha¬ 
rine II. who was always “abreast of her times” and 
“astride” of her steed. That royal Kate constantly 


Only Letters 131 

donned male attire and led her troops in person at 
grand reviews. One of these outfits seems to have 
been for gala days, and the other for ordinary, every¬ 
day use, but both were of amazing splendor and 
each had an entire equipment of appropriate swords, 
dirks and pistols, and to make the gift complete, were 
six blankets of exquisitely fine wool covered with 
cloth of gold, embroidered with elaborate designs in 
small amethysts and pearls, and a pail of solid silver 
weighing fifty pounds, and superbly embossed with 
equestrian subjects for the quenching of the equine 
thirst royal. 

Room after room was packed with splendid collec¬ 
tions, one in particular filled with tons of the huge 
silver and gold, ewers, flagons, salvers, candelabra, 
etc., upon which the wealthy princes and boyars 
spent enormous sums for the decoration of their 
tables and sideboards. Other rooms with a showing 
of state and ceremonial robes and costumes, that 
simply defy description, by their prodigal blendings 
of gold, and gems, of superb stuffs, and exquisite 
workmanship, indeed to fairly well see what we 
were compelled to, in two hours, two days, were 
quite little enough. 

Directly in front of our windows is the great 
Vosskresenski Gate of the Iberian Virgin, beside 
which is the small, but super-sacred chapel of the 
Iberian Virgin ever in a blaze of light from hundreds 
of votive candles and containing several especially 
revered icons, to kiss which, the people throng the 
little room from dawn until dark. 

Whenever the Tsar comes to Moscow, he first 


132 


Only Letters 

drives to the chapel, dismounts, enters and pros¬ 
trates himself before these sacred pictures. 

The shrine doors close at dark, but all through the 
night regardless of the weather, a few devout wor¬ 
shipers are ever kneeling on the flagged platform, 
and touching their bare foreheads to its muddy 
stones. I saw a row of such devotees from my 
window at midnight, and again in the early morning, 
kneeling in the snow that lay on the ground and was 
then falling. 

Country merchants, when they come to the city 
often spend the entire night before the doors, so that 
they may be the first to kiss the picture, when the 
doors are thrown open. It is the common belief that 
the man who first reaches, and kisses the icon will 
be especially fortunate in his trading during the day, 
that is to say, will be unusually successful in getting 
the better of those with whom he deals. This means 
much here, where the average merchant is a past- 
grand master, in the unaimable, but lucrative arts of 
lying, fraud, and deception. In this chapel is housed 
the world-renowned icon of the blessed Iberian Vir¬ 
gin, which, however, is seldom at home, for the 
reason, that visits from it are in constant demand, 
from invalids and others, seeking the benefits of its 
presumably miraculous healing and helpful powers. 

The picture is an unusually large one, in a frame of 
solid beaten gold, thickly covered with splendid 
diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, etc. 

When making calls it is the sole occupant of a 
state coach with six gorgeously caparisoned horses, 
ridden by postillions, in a special, and very handsome 


133 


Only Letters 

livery. As the picture passes through the streets 
every one uncovers and crosses himself, and as a 
visit is always acknowledged with a gift of any sum 
from one hundred roubles upward, the revenue 
gained from the constant circulation of this picture 
which often makes ten calls a day, amounts to a 
large sum. 1 was so fortunate as to meet the icon 
coming home, and had a close view of it in its 
coach. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Moscow , December 18th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

The Grand Hotel, Moscow, where we 
are lodged, is a curious correllation of contradictions. 
It is built in three sections and as the halls of those 
sections do not traverse the entire length of the 
building, there is quite an assortment of front doors, 
by which to reach the various floors, a plan that se¬ 
cures the greatest sum total of annoyance to the larg¬ 
est number of guests. A tardy, but tolerable eleva¬ 
tor runs through the central section, from which, by 
ascending, or descending, various flights of stairs, 
you finally reach your room. The narrow, dark, 
jail-like corridors ever reek with the fetid odors of 
the national cigarette, which is consumed with an 
astonishing continuity, by most sedate and proper¬ 
looking ladies of all ages, who stroll up and down 
these utterly unventilated lanes. The entire house 




1 34 


Only Letters 

cries aloud for soap and water, and is a field that has 
lain fallow for cleansing, lo, these many years, and is 
like to so remain many more. The main dining¬ 
room and its group of small cafes, is manned by the 
most attractive lot of waiters I ever saw. Young 
Tartars, with jet-black hair, a la shoe brush, swarthy 
skins under rosy cheeks, flashing eyes, and beautiful 
teeth. They are as quick as cats as they glide si¬ 
lently about in low felt shoes, and are most admir¬ 
able servitors. They wear full suits of snowy, 
starched linen (actually pajamas), with a straight- 
collared blouse, buttoned to the chin, and full trou¬ 
sers, with a broad girdle of crimson cotton, into 
which is thrust on the one side, a large, black leather 
wallet for the “tips,” and on the other, a huge gleam¬ 
ing corkscrew for the “Tipsy,” or like to be such 
anon. The cuisine throughout is exquisite, with an 
endless menu, covering exceeding many strange dishes, 
and as it is printed in “Russian ” is as enlightening 
to us, as an Egyptian “Stele.” I should have men¬ 
tioned ere this, that we were met upon our arrival 
here, by a local courier we had engaged, who adhered 
to us throughout our stay with a necessitous tenacity, 
and who among other things, ordered our meals. 
He was a diminutive German, long resident here, 
speaking a curious English tinged with divers other 
unknown tongues, tolerably well informed, but vain, 
garrulous, and self-assertive, to a degree, even be¬ 
yond the wont of undersized men. It may of course, 
be the result of a continuity of accidents, but I have 
noticed that the twelve or fifteen statural inches de¬ 
nied our abbreviated brethren is exceedingly apt to 


i35 


Only Letters 

be added to their, shall we say, cerebral girth ?—by 
way of compensation?—at any rate,—H.’s was a 
violent case of chronic “Cephalic" distention. 

We took lunch one day at the famous Slavianski 
Bazaar, over in the Kitai Gorod, or merchants’ quarter 
of the ancient Chinese section, once surrounded by a 
high battlemented wall, bits of which are still stand¬ 
ing. The cafe, a large rambling nondescript room, 
had in its centre a huge circular basin of marble in 
which swam hundreds of the famous “sterlet," a 
small sturgeon of the Volga which represents the 
acme of Russian fish possibilities. Diners select their 
own fish which is then dipped out with a net and 
shortly reappears, this time swimming in a sauce that 
goes far to render delicious, a fish that does not of 
itself approach in flavor our “shad" when properly 
roasted on the shingle of supreme possibilities, but 
with a price upon its head highly suggestive of the 
late Lucullus, so lax in the economics of gastronomy. 

On another day to the famous “ Hermitage " the 
conceded Mecca of the Russian gourmand, espe¬ 
cially noted for its peerless “caviare" and a long list 
of iced soups, but where everything served is as ex¬ 
quisite as one might expect after seemingly pension¬ 
ing the cook, to offset a single meal. I was told that 
the head waiter here, pays for his situation a trifle of 
eight thousand roubles per annum, i. e., four thou¬ 
sand dollars in our currency, and I fancy the preser¬ 
vation of health is not his sole ambition! I trow 
not! 

Holy Moscow is preeminently a city of churches of 
the which including minor chapels there are said to 


136 Only Letters 

be fifteen hundred, and as every sacred building here 
indulges in anywhere from four to ten spires, you can 
easily see how the sky must be rent by such an host 
of architectural aspirations. These spires and domes 
are of many forms, and of colors infinite, the bulbous 
onion-dome a leading favorite, with long, slender, 
tapering spires, springing from squat, square bases, a 
good second, while in many churches there is a 
jumble of the various styles, and many, also, have 
long and very ornate chains of gilded iron hanging in 
graceful curves from their summits. This vast multi¬ 
tude of domes and spires with their great variety of 
colors, and gilding when seen from a coign of van¬ 
tage is a wondrous sight, even when its glories be 
discounted by more or less snow and under the low¬ 
ering winter sky. I can easily accept the universal 
testimony to its dazzling brilliancy when those vivid 
reds and grass-greens, those intense cobalt blues, and 
royal purples, those chocolate browns and gleaming, 
golden domes glow beneath the rays of a summer 
sunlight that is so overpowering here. 

At the further end of the famous, and infamous 
Red Square, just outside of the Kremlin walls, the 
scene of countless indescribable (but constantly de¬ 
scribed), butcheries, of that fiend incarnate, Ivan 
Vasilievitch Gronzie, better known as “Ivan the Ter¬ 
rible,” stands the Vasili Blajenni, Church of St. Basil 
the Blessed, erected by this same religious fiend, who 
is credited with having put out the eyes of its builder, 
to prevent the duplication of the most eccentric 
church building I ever saw. Its eleven domes and 
spires, cover a cluster of as many different chapels, 


i37 


Only Letters 

some so small that twenty persons crowd them, 
while the entire interior is an incoherent network of 
narrow winding passages, and of rooms like a tube 
on end it is indeed, much more like a gigantic wasp’s 
nest than a deliberately planned place of worship. 
This clustering group of piecemeal interiors, is a 
blaze of brilliant color and gilding, with wonderful 
icons, and sacred banners of sheet metal, mosaic 
work, etc., and some of its conventional decorative 
designs are delightful. On the outside, its domes and 
spires with their variety of size, form, and coloring, 
seem to sap the possibilities of dazzling effects, in¬ 
deed, to my thinking ’tis the one subject that even 
the hand-painted photograph, with its consummate 
powers of chromatic misstatement cannot exaggerate. 

Several of the churches of the group in the Krem¬ 
lin are superb, especially the Cathedral of the As¬ 
sumption where the coronations take place, with its 
lofty walls a solid groundwork of gilding on which 
huge figures of various saints are painted and many 
of them exquisitely done. In another church, the 
paving consists of blocks of agate and jasper, pre¬ 
sented by some eastern potentate. In this church, 
and directly opposite the golden doors, is a small 
shallow niche in the wall, to which the blood-soaked 
Ivan the Terrible retired when weary, after a morn¬ 
ing of boilings, and flayings, and various other butch- 
erings of those patient subjects, who supplied this 
pleasant “Little Father" with an endless round of 
amusement. Here in this little niche, like a tiger in 
his lair, when sated for the moment with bloodshed, 
this monster sat and gazed upon, and listened to, the 


138 Only Letters 

splendid ritual of the Orthodox Church, with the 
gold robed priest, offering prayers for the peace and 
prosperity of this worthy Tsar, who is said to have 
been the only one of many, who died “peacefully," 
in his bed, and who with many other Muscovite roy¬ 
alties is buried here. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Moscow, December 20th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

Facing the Red Square is the Gostinni 
Dvor, or Grand Bazaar; a vast modern building trite 
to a degree, and filled with shops, most of them of 
no interest to the traveler, a sorry successor to the 
ancient group of buildings that once stood here, and 
which was one of the famous Russian sights. 

Entrance to the Kremlin from this square, is had 
through the famous Redeemer Gate which no man 
may pass with covered head; and when the Tsar is 
here, he dismounts, removes his head-gear and walks 
through, precisely as would the meanest moujik. 

Above the gate is a miraculous and greatly revered 
icon of the Saviour, to which the portal owes its 
sanctity; and upon this picture, criminals executed in 
the Red Square, and the countless victims of Ivan’s 
pastimes, fixed eyes that were soon to be sealed in 
death. This gate has also been the state entrance for 
centuries, and during the reign of Peter the Great, 
who for some reason hated beards, those who in- 




139 


Only Letters 

dulged in such anti-Petrine decorations were com¬ 
pelled to pay a tax each time they passed through it. 

On Saturday we took sledges and drove out several 
miles to the great Novo Devichi convent to attend the 
morning service in the chapel. This convent is a vast 
collection of buildings surrounded by high walls, 
flanked with great massive towers; is indeed, or 
was at one time, a strong fortress. It is now a con¬ 
vent exclusively for ladies of rank, and the nuns 
make church vestments, paint on canvas and ivory, 
do exquisite lace work, etc. The most remarkable 
inmates are three of the nuns, who sing in the morn¬ 
ing services in their chapel with perfect bass voices 
to those who drive out to hear this “lusus naturae," 
which certainly is remarkable. 

Returning, we passed a company of infantry sing¬ 
ing lustily as they marched across the snowy fields, 
and also passed the great hospital, I think the largest 
in existence, with seven thousand beds and a small 
army of attendant physicians. 

Later, with the courier, I went to the great found¬ 
ling hospital where I saw eight hundred nurses caring 
for fourteen hundred poor little waifs, and was told 
that the daily arrivals amount to anywhere from 
twenty-five to fifty children, and numbers leave every 
day to board with peasants in the country. During 
the year the total arrivals average about eighteen 
thousand. The girls are trained for domestic service, 
and the boys as a rule enter the army. 

The curious, winding, narrow streets of the older 
parts of Moscow, and preeminently the motley folk 
who traverse them, are a never failing fund of enter- 


140 


Only Letters 

tainment. One may stand at a prominent corner in 
the old merchants’ quarter and review a novel ethno¬ 
graphic procession; of course with constantly recur¬ 
ring breaks in it, and may see men of many races; 
Tartars and Mongols, Bokharans, Persians, men from 
Turkestan, Samoides from the far north, Kalmuks, 
mountaineers from the Caucasus and Urals, Kurds 
(on their “whey”?), Turks, Chinamen ; in fact, all 
Asia is represented in Moscow, and the strange dark 
faces and equally strange and often beautiful garbs 
are matters of absorbing interest to me. 

Great wealth and dire poverty are constantly in 
evidence, and the shops—none of them fine buildings 
or pretentious; indeed, as a rule, small and dingy— 
carry stocks that are simply amazing. This is espe¬ 
cially noticeable in jewels and furs, for both of which 
Moscow is a world-renowned market. Small, insig¬ 
nificant shops display such an Aladdin-esque pro¬ 
fusion of diamonds, rubies and emeralds as to cause 
one to wonder where customers could be found for 
such large numbers of really magnificent gems. 

We visited a furrier who has an immense establish¬ 
ment and who handles furs to the extent of twelve or 
fifteen million roubles annually. Here we were 
handed a bunch of perhaps fifty raw sable pelts, un¬ 
dyed skins of a superb deep brown, almost black 
down the centre, and fairly gleaming with silver hairs 
which were worth twelve hundred dollars, gold, per 
skin. We found the temptation to purchase a flow¬ 
ing mantle of such furs quite as resistible as the 
project to form a syndicate and invest in a single skin. 

There is a man here who is the owner of vast silk 


Only Letters 141 

mills, and who must have measurably prospered, as 
he maintains fifteen completely furnished houses, and 
spends his time in moving from one to another as the 
whim seizes him. Alas! poor, prosperous nomad, 
he has my unfeigned sympathy as I recall the few 
unhappy “flittings” of which I have been the vic¬ 
tim; flittings imperishably embalmed in my memory 
by various “Lares and Penates’' sore wounded by 
the storage van-dais and his callous myrmidons. Of 
course, having nothing to “shift” save one’s self, 
vastly simplifies this moving question. 

Yesterday, to the great Market Square, directly be¬ 
hind our hotel; a most visually remunerative quarter, 
where strange folk invariably congest when a prey 
to those pangs from which no race or rank is immune. 
Fish figures largely in the Russian diet, and here were 
great ten or twenty pound chunks of the Volga 
sturgeon, unlike ours, a white-fleshed fish, piled up 
in small mountains, great carp frozen stiff and stood 
on end like fagots, huge pike and bass frappe, 
pythonic conger-eels from the Baltic, with herrings 
and small fry without end, all frozen as stiff as frost 
could make them. Sides of beef, piled high, flanked 
by other tons of veal and pork; and as for roasting 
pigs, they were there in pathetic plenty, piled up like 
cord-wood in lots of several hundred, all seemingly 
of the one size, pallid perforce, but with a stereo¬ 
typed look of cherubic resignation with which a 
violent ending ever endues a porcine “Slaughter of 
the Innocents,” be they “done to death ” by the Don 
or Delaware. Game is superabundant; wild boars, 
hares, brown and white rabbits, deer and reindeer, 


142 


Only Letters 

pheasants, ducks, and various grouse and partridges, 
with vast heaps of a tiny little black-fleshed quail, 
called “rab-schik." This delicious little bird lives in 
large flocks in the great pine forests all over the coun¬ 
try where the peasants kill (or I fancy, net them) and 
bring them to market by whole sled loads, when cold 
enough to freeze them. They are delicious and very 
cheap, and people buy them by the barrel and keep 
them “on tap" all through the winter. Here also 
were heaps of the great king of the grouse family, 
the splendid “ capercalzie," weighing eight to ten 
pounds, and of splendid plumage; a bird that some 
over-sanguine enthusiasts tried to naturalize in Maine 
a few years back, with what results I never learned. 
Eggs are here by millions, and tons of butter notice¬ 
able, this latter not exclusively by the eye. Apropos 
of wild creatures, Moscow is so near dense forests 
that within five miles of the Kremlin in very cold 
weather, at dawn and nightfall the peasants go about 
in squads and always armed, children being kept in¬ 
doors, as the great gray timber wolf in packs of five, 
ten, twenty, is a constantly recurring “suburbanite." 
As a matter of concrete and regrettable fact, the lives 
of these poor peasants are an incessant struggle to 
keep “the wolf from the door" with at best a very 
meagre success within the possibilities. 

I greatly regret that we must leave here so soon as 
there is a vast deal to see in the city proper, and 
numerous excursions to near-by places of great in¬ 
terest, and we are all especially sorry to miss seeing 
a famous gallery that is now closed for rearrange¬ 
ment. We leave to-morrow for Vienna, breaking 


143 


Only Letters 

the long run by a stop at Warsaw, the interest of 
which city I suspect is not confined to its association 
with one “Thaddeus” of fictitious origin. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Vienna, December 26th , /poo. 

My dear M-: 

We left Moscow with its host of marvels 
all too briefly seen, in a heavy snow, and started on 
a twenty-nine hour run to Warsaw, a most monot¬ 
onous, uninteresting ride, across vast plains, for 
weary miles, sprinkled with clumps of small pines 
and firs, and again opening out into broad prairies 
stretching to the horizon. Some of the country was 
not unlike Holland, chiefly by reason of its flatness 
and owing to numerous windmills that feebly waved 
their tattered sails above the great pools that abounded. 
We passed countless dreary little villages, mere 
duplications of desolation, a squalid sequence of little 
hamlets where life, an incessant struggle for bare 
existence, is borne with a cheerfulness only possible 
as the result of many generations of the like condi¬ 
tions by which the back has been fitted to the burden. 

A Russian village usually consists of a single 
street, in winter a slough of pasty mud (when not 
frozen), transmuted in summer to a broad lane ankle- 
deep in an impalpable dust that rises in stifling clouds 
responsive to the hoof-strokes of horses habitually 
driven a la Russe, i. e., on a dead run. The weather- 




144 


Only Letters 

stained, unpainted log houses stand with their gable- 
ends to the street, and are usually lighted by three 
small windows of four panes each, with a door at the 
side and roofed with a thatch which in the summer 
sustains a luxuriant growth of grass often sprinkled 
with flowers, a very attractive feature this, and in 
marked contrast to the otherwise dreary surround¬ 
ings. Indoors, a rough narrow bench running partly 
around the wall, an equally rough table with a great 
earthenware stove, constitutes the total furnishings, 
as in the poorer houses, beds and chairs are seldom 
seen. When you remember that about two dollars 
per week is the average earnings, and that no 
year has more than 200 working days, such scant and 
humble surroundings excite no wonder, indeed, how 
large families manage to prevent the divorce of soul 
and body is a marvel, and these conditions are the lot 
of millions of peasants in this vast Empire. The com¬ 
mon people are most attractive, liars and cheats 
though so many of them be, but the Government is 
utterly rotten, and seems to concentrate its energies 
upon ascertaining what the people would find accept¬ 
able and then strictly forbidding it. No personal 
freedom is permitted, and the chief of police is an 
uncontrolled blend of autocrat and despot. The 
simplest advertisement may not be inserted in any 
newspaper until it has been “ censored private let¬ 
ters are constantly opened (some of ours were), and 
no business can be carried on by a foreigner without 
a regular system of bribery. In large establishments, 
one man is usually delegated to “see” officials, is in 
fact, corrupter-in-chief. The Tsar, a really well-in- 


145 


Only Letters 

tending man, is utterly and totally in the hands of his 
ministers who constitute a bureaucracy fatally hostile 
to any material reforms by which they would be 
shorn of their despotic power. 

As to the “autocrat of all the Rus$ias," ever really 
“ autocrating’’ it, the idea is simply preposterous. 
As a matter of abstract fact, a certain “strenuous" 
gentleman temporarily domiciled on the banks of the 
Potomac, is clothed with more actual autonomic 
power, than the merged potencies of Tsar, Kaiser, 
Sultan, and Shah could furnish. 

But I digress, and must get back to our train which 
after those twenty-nine hours of an unbroken monot¬ 
ony, of third-rate daylight and quite authentic dark¬ 
ness, carried us across those dull but fertile plains of 
Western Russia, and at the closing of a very sombre 
day, across the wide and turgid Vistula, and set us 
down in Warsaw. We found it a decidedly com¬ 
monplace city in the throes of a transition from an 
ancient and shabby, into a new and decidedly 
“smart" one, with many splendid buildings under 
way, and a general air of awakening and “hustle." 
E. and I soon found our way down into the old Jew¬ 
ish quarter with a tangled maze of narrow, crooked 
streets, smothery little market-places, quaint grimy 
old shops ; many of these, the dregs of one time fine 
residences. Until one has seen, heard, aye! and 
scented, a throng of “ Warsaw-yers," he has not 
plumbed the depths of unattractive Semitic possibil¬ 
ities. Such noses, and such clothes, such red cork¬ 
screw curls, such mouths, and such fangs of teeth, 
such a jabbering and spreading abroad of grimy, sal- 


146 Only Letters 

low hands in the palmistry of emphasis, and such 
chafferings over the unsavory messes of food, in the 
slimy little markets, were a seance that quite dis¬ 
tanced Amsterdam and Petersburg. 

I saw one thing here that greatly impressed me 
with its utility ; a large iron tank on wheels, not un¬ 
like a Standard Oil wagon, from which hot soup was 
sold for a trifle to those who had anything to receive 
it in. The driver was sore pressed to serve the eager 
customers who crowded around him with pitchers 
and basins, bottles and jars, pans, cups; indeed any 
and all “ soup-worthy ” vessels were forthcoming. 

The most amusing thing “ we-saw ” in Warsaw— 
in sooth one of the most remarkable things I ever en¬ 
countered—was a pair of adult cherubs. We passed 
a large, imposing, and evidently ancient hall in the 
spandrels over the lofty portals of which, were large 
stucco-reliefs of cherubs with long curly beards, 
precisely such as we had just left wagging in the 
dirty little market square. I stopped to examine 
these unique figures carefully, to make certain that 
they were indeed the orthodox brand of cherub, and 
not merely truncated angels or architecturally “strait¬ 
ened” saints. They were in sooth, the regular stand¬ 
ard pattern of beatified butterfly, simply head and 
wings solus, and quite as lacking in sedentary pos¬ 
sibilities, as the lovely Dresden twain. 

In our wanderings we came upon the barracks of 
a sotnia of kazaks where a lot of these semi-savage 
troopers were grooming their wild, lean horses, and 
for a solid hour, in the teeth of a bitter wind, we 
strolled to and fro on a lofty bridge spanning the 


147 


Only Letters 

Vistula, waiting to see one of their wonderful 
drills that we later learned had just been finished 
when we arrived on the scene. Here, too, we met 
a lot of jolly singing soldiers en route to their weekly 
Russian bath, each man with a long crash towel, and 
many with bunches of birch twigs with which, after 
having been first par-boiled and then doused with 
icy cold water, they beat each other into accelerated 
circulation. 

Another long and tedious ride brought us, late in 
the night to the Austrian frontier, and in the gray 
dawning of a sunless day, we glide silently into fog¬ 
bound, sleeping Vienna. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Vienna, December 29th, 1900. 

My dear M-: 

It was in ’73, “Exposition year," that I 
was last here, coming down the Danube (“ blue" 
only for waltz purposes), for two hundred miles and 
stopping at the Metropole, then a new and splendid 
inn, but now sadly out at elbows, shabby and for¬ 
lorn. 

We drove to our quarters in one of those sepul¬ 
chral strasse’s with its long rows of lofty, modern 
samenesses on either side, and with an unbroken con¬ 
tinuity of facade that here weds dulness to conceded 
desirability. 

We are really in a fine quarter, but two short 




148 Only Letters 

blocks from the “Ring” and ten minutes from the 
Graben, and all “that’s doing” in this bright and 
charming city. Modern Vienna certainly is gay, and 
with a gaiety distinctly Parisian, as of late years it too 
has undergone the “ Haussmannizing ” process and 
the many narrow winding streets of the old quarter, 
and various ancient “bits” that so amply re¬ 
warded my continuity of getting losts, in ’73, have 
vanished. All these have given place to wide streets, 
right angles have routed delightfully wrong ones, 
and a general modernization has wrought havoc 
with the purely picturesque, which quite a la Arab hath 
“ folded its tent” and faded to a mere retrospect. 

The “ Stock-im-Eisen,” that famous old larch 
trunk driven full of nails and spikes, and surrounded 
by iron hoops and the halo of hoary traditions, 
touching its plenitude of hardware when I was here 
before, stood at the corner of a stately ancient build¬ 
ing. Now seemingly much reduced in size, it finds 
refuge in a glass fronted case, like a mummy on the 
corner of a “spick and span” new building of the 
“Equitable Life,” and so is it with most of the Vien¬ 
nese “ oldnesses,” that I so enjoyed in'73. The 
striking contrast between Austria and Russia, con¬ 
stantly forces itself upon one’s recognition. 

After such a wide-spread system of petty repres¬ 
sions, of incessant espionage, of stilled individuality, 
and of the all pervasiveness of governmental domi¬ 
nation as prevails in Muscovy, this seems a land 
wherein the “milk” of “lavish” liberty, flows in 
unison with the “honey ” of a harmless autonomy,— 
which is however scarcely the fact. 


149 


Only Letters 

Here we are back in a Gothic atmosphere again, no 
more “Onion-domes” of gleaming gold, or star 
flecked cobalt, no spires barbaric, in their reds and 
greens, no snowy minarets with gilded chains pend¬ 
ant in sweeping curves, back once more to pointed 
arch and sculptured portal, to buttress, pinnacle and 
tapering spire, to noble windows rich in their stone 
traceries, and to those splendors with which their 
mellow glasses flood solemn aisle and stately tran¬ 
sept. Back once more to those glorious comming¬ 
lings of sunstrewn color, for lack of which the noblest 
Russo-Greek interior seems cold and lifeless all. We 
are but a step from the Maximilian Votive Church, 
built to commemorate that unfortunate Prince, a 
hopelessly “round peg” of royalty, striving to 
“square” with a clearly non-existent call to the 
Mexican throne. 'Tis a fine bit of strictly modern 
Gothic, a trifle florid perhaps, and with everything to 
gain from a couple of centuries in which to mellow 
alike the raw stone and its many large windows, at 
present a bit glaring and hard in color, from an ex¬ 
cess of blues, but accumulated dust, and a restricted 
neglect, have ever been faithful servitors of the pic¬ 
turesque and plausible simulators of genuine antiquity. 
The church stands on a broad, raised terrace in a 
wide open square facing directly on the famous 
“Ring,” the settings of which have been so marvel¬ 
ously multiplied since my former visit. 

Following the general trend of the ancient walls, 
which when intact, made Vienna a famous strong¬ 
hold of the Middle Ages; this splendid street forms 
an irregular horseshoe, starting from and returning 


150 Only Letters 

to the Danube after a curving sweep of about two 
miles. 

A broad and stately street, upon which the most 
imposing array of public buildings, Palaces, Museums, 
Senate House, Rath House, Opera House, and Theatres 
follow each other in a splendid sequence, interspersed 
with charming little parks and gardens, and with a 
totality of grandeur without its peer in Christendom. 

The city abounds in fine shops (some finer than 
any in Paris), filled with a world of pretty and good 
things, including fine “ confections," for both sides 
of humanity, to wit, the inside and outside, and 
“ those who should know,” declare that the “ things ” 
always “fit to perfection,” and are sent home when 
promised! These shops line the maze of short streets 
that flow into, and from the “ Graben ” and furnish 
a deal of desultory entertainment; I am surprised to 
find so few really fine jewelry shops, but after Mos¬ 
cow, with its amazing display, anything short of a 
royal treasury vault must seem tame and common¬ 
place. 

In leather goods, as of yore (after London), Vienna 
easily leads, and here too the microbe of the now epi¬ 
demic “art nouveau,” was, I think, first detected and 
has been so carefully nourished, that the entire range 
of the arts decorative have become inoculated with 
it to an amazing extent. 

Only yesterday, the lot of us went to an exhibition 
called (and with reason) the “Secession,” not so 
named as a jest, but as deliberately laying claim to 
that trenchant title, because of its having boldly 
“spiked all prevailing canons ” of existing “ schools.” 


Only Letters 151 

The movement is now sailing the shoreless seas of a 
rampant eccentricity under its own “Jolly Roger," 
with “plank-walking," and “no quarter" for any 
and all existing art conventions, however innocent 
and venerated. 

I never so much as dreamed of such vagaries in 
stuffs and hangings, in furniture, bric-a-brac and 
pictures, in sculpture, jewelry, pottery and glass, nay, 
almost in the very circumambient atmosphere one's 
lungs gained access to, per ticket of “ high art" and 
cost. It was in sooth, the realm of the weird and the 
lair of the uncanny, where form and color fairly 
reeled and staggered in a delirious determination to 
be unlike “ anything in the earth beneath, or in the 
water under that earth.” “New art" welcomes to 
its fold every form of eccentricity in design propor¬ 
tion, color-scheme, or chromatic combination, and 
when it has to do with the very acme of art possibili¬ 
ties the “ human form divine " its treatment of that 
supreme motif is usually preposterous. An accepta¬ 
ble presentation of the human figure as every one 
knows, demands in combination, faultless drawing 
and lifelike coloring, certainly the former at least, but 
not so your “new art" “man." In his work, the 
newly fledged glories of distortion, truncation and 
elongation, strive for precedence, with the livid, lan¬ 
guid, limp and anemic. Commencing with a pre¬ 
sumptive female head, he will evolve from it a figure 
a few inches wide by any length in excess of normal, 
culminating either in some sort of an unmaidenly 
tangle of involved curves, or tapering off into the 
unlovely nothingness of a pink or purple void. As 


152 


Only Letters 

for sculpture—just one bit will, I think, suffice, a 
greatly admired fountain in the entrance hall around 
whose basin with an unblushing plastic plagiarism 
were strewn four bipeds instantly recognizable, as 
the emaciated gleanings of an East Indian famine re¬ 
lief corps. In sooth, the wards of any Incurable 
Home might be canvassed in vain for the hapless 
victims of such comprehensive distortions, as met 
and mingled in that stone quartette of squalid spraw- 
lers, but a truce to such rubbish, and an end to this. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Vienna , January 5th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Winter is here indeed; the ‘‘air bites' 
shrewdly, and ’tis bitter cold” with snow flurries and 
winds—the keenest of keen. We are lodged in a pen¬ 
sion, but do not so much as breathe this, as its pro¬ 
prietor does not “ take boarders ”; she merely enjoys 
the more or less permanent society of a few friends 
whose appreciation of her spontaneous hospitality 
overflows at the end of each week, when they one 
and all pay her various “ marks ” of respect, the num¬ 
ber of said “marks” varying according to the 
“strenuousness” of that hospitality. This really ex¬ 
cellent woman is badly handicapped in her business by 
the claimed presence of three letters in front of herfinal 
name, i. e.,“ Von,” which “ Von,” with a more or less 
filmy grip connects her with some branch of the ex- 




153 


Only Letters 

ceedingly branching Austrian nobility. Her apart¬ 
ments which occupy the fifth floor of a fine house 
that lends its quota of gloom to the moribund en¬ 
vironment elsewhere noted, are approached by the 
most “depressing” of elevators. 

In the lower hall you enter a stuffy little cube redo¬ 
lent of leaking gas, and venerable upholstery, are 
locked in by the porter who next sets a sort of time- 
lock contraption, and you then commence a tremu¬ 
lous upward creep through the stratified stenches of 
four layers of active kitchens. After having nasally 
noted that three floors are to dine upon cabbage and 
veal, and one upon veal and cabbage, you are startled 
by a sharp click, the mechanical palsy ceases, the 
door is automatically unlocked and you have arrived. 
Frau Von- has some beautiful old furniture, in¬ 

cluding several black oak thrones serving as chairs, 
the seats of which are carved in such high relief that 
after the stereotyped deliberation of a German dinner, 
a still “higher relief” is welcomed in the guise of a 
becushioned but untitled modern sofa. As you per¬ 
fectly well know from personal experiences, even 
such a trite performance as going to bed is not lack¬ 
ing in its complications in any German land, pro¬ 
viding that one be above middle height. Here I must 
pose, repose, or essay to, as the half of a dormant 
parenthesis; I ever “arrive” at the foot-board with¬ 
out having left the head-board, and in that far too 
brief interval, I’m not altogether “on pleasure bent.” 
Then, too, those utterly preposterous “down poul¬ 
tices,” four feet square ostensibly to cover six feet 
one way; at any rate, how they exasperate the 



154 


Only Letters 

drowsy one! I care not how full your repertory of 
contortions be, while the abdominal Equator basks in 
a far too exuberant warmth, the Arctic head and 
the Antipodean toes suffer the actual rigors of their 
geographic prototypes, and when one’s dreams drift 
into personalities, ’tis quite ten visions of “Peary” 
to one of “Stanley,” more’s the pity. 

In the matter of food, we never cease to mourn 
the goodly Muscovy “flesh-pots” of esculent mem¬ 
ory. One wearies of continuous cabbage, of turnips 
incessant, of Brussels sprouts super-recurrent, and of 
adolescent beef served with a frequency positively 
“ prodigal ” in its suggestiveness. We have become 
the regular patrons of a near-by chestnut vendor to an 
extent that evidently fills him with wonder, and we 
have also formed the habit of afternoon teas at a de¬ 
lightful cafe, just off the Graben with delicious ad¬ 
denda to the “ cheering cup ” that we all find accep¬ 
tably and internally reassuring. But a truce to all 
this “ twaddle ” re-food, and lodgings. If travel must 
narrow down to mere “cakes and ale,” no American 
ever leaves home in pursuit of such groundlings, but 
Europe is somewhat more than mere “creature com¬ 
forts ” to no small number of our compatriots. 

Vienna, as you know abounds in fine collections 
and these lend positive wings to morning hours for 
me, especially the two splendid museums on the 
Ring, one of the arts, and the other of natural history 
(grand opening here to “ Badekerize ” a bit. Won’t 
do it)—both collections superb—let it go at that, but 
bear with just one item. A lot of cedar logs from a 
lake-dweller’s house found in a lake bed near Salz- 


i55 


Only Letters 

burg sound as a dollar (gold), and notched together 
precisely as Rangeley lake-dwellers build camps to¬ 
day. Verily, the sun shines on naught but plagia¬ 
risms—most of them quite unconscious ones I grant 
you. 

Draft horses in their winter plumage here, certainly 
are droll with the hair on the body close-clipped, and 
the legs left “ au naturel,”—net result—each beast 
seemingly wears two pairs of fur trousers. 

I have found me a very convenient and comfortable 
cafe which I much frequent, and where that rarest of 
European products, really good coffee (sans chicory) 
is served, and where one may actually see Life plus 
Puck, Judge and various other American journals; all 
of these I suspect are laid aside for me by one of the 
waiters whose table I invariably patronize. Every 
afternoon the place is packed (with men only), all of 
whom drink coffee or chocolate—no liquors—and sit 
for hours chattering and smoking as if they had no 
other occupation in life, as I fancy many of them 
have not; army officers, of course, in throngs. 

It grows “early,”—’tis now past midnight, and 
quite time for those chastened joys of bed just 
chronicled. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Vienna , January 12th , 1901 . 

My dear M-: 

Guard mount in the old palace yard at 
one o’clock is a stock entertainment with an occa- 




156 Only Letters 

sional glimpse of the venerable Francis Joseph 
“thrown in," or better, driven “out." 

The garrison here is gathered from all parts of the 
Empire, Hungarians, in skin-tight, sky-blue trousers, 
toy soldier caps, and long, loose, slouchy black coats; 
Jaegers in large black felt hats turned up with a great 
bunch of cock-tail plumes, gray baggy breeches and 
spats, with the same gloomy black coats, all march¬ 
ing for guard-mount, with an odd goose-step quite 
“ downing ” Berlin’s stiffest pacing. A Bosnian regi¬ 
ment, in tall, deep-red fezzes, and the afore-men¬ 
tioned cuticle-adjacent breeches; most of these are 
Mahommedans of fair size and powerful build, dark 
almost to the Egyptian darky darkness, with notice¬ 
ably fine white teeth which show to good advantage 
as they are a merry lot, and constantly smiling. A 
good lot on the whole, these Austrian troops; not so 
tall as the Tsar’s men, but sturdy and serviceable 
looking, a bit slouchy however, and not “up” to 
either the Germans or Russians in carriage or drill, 
and with company officers, decidedly slack in noting 
constant lapses, patent to any layman. When march¬ 
ing distances, standing guard, or walking a post, the 
rifle is carried with the arm thrust through the sling, 
and the piece hanging straight down from the shoul¬ 
der,—about as soldierly this, as the accepted method 
for carrying a hod of bricks. 

Just off of the Ring in the lower part of the city is a 
very swell and exclusive skating rink where a fine 
band plays while the nobility and gentry disport 
themselves; a subscription affair, but I believe open 
to the properly introduced', and gulden equipped out- 


i57 


Only Letters 

sider, who, for a considerable consideration is ad¬ 
mitted to take his chances of flooring an Arch-Duke, 
or “downing” an equally “ arch ’-Duchess. Lots 
of officers (these for once swordless), illustrate how 
utterly incessant drill can ruin an easy, graceful car¬ 
riage, but some of the “ cits ” did quite well, and a 
lot of young girls, a few not ill-looking, skated ad¬ 
mirably, all of which could be seen by any one sans 
introduction and minus kreutzers, through the 
woven-wire fence that bounded one side of the 
park. 

Yesterday to the Treasury, to view the crown 
jewels, finding the customary display of congested 
splendors, especially in the huge emeralds and rubies 
of the late Maria-Theresia who certainly could 
“shine” when she had a “mind to.” 

One of our Russian disappointments was a failure 
to see the crown jewels of that marvelously accumu¬ 
lative realm, but as very few ambassadors even are 
permitted to see them, and they only after an endless 
amount of “roseate-binding,” and weeks of waiting, 
we were of course forced to abandon the idea and to 
retain for better uses the necessary “tips” required 
for such seeing, a trifle of $26.00 I’m told. 

Of the very few remains of Old Vienna still intact, 
St. Stephen’s is my never failing, ever new delight, in 
its little platz past which the boisterous tide of Vien¬ 
nese life and gaiety is ever flowing. Within the 
grand old pile a perpetual twilight reigns, upon which 
the lofty windows and glorious glass, some of it with 
the mellow tones of past ages, and all of it with that 
of accumulated dust, make little impression. At the 


158 Only Letters 

various altars, a few worshipers mostly women, are 
ever kneeling and the silence and peace of lofty aisle 
and transept and of those great spaces above, where 
the massive roof-timbers are dimly visible is im¬ 
mensely restful, and 1 often drop in there from the 
gay Graben for a little space. Around its outer walls, 
the quaint and curious monuments that so interested 
me in ’73 are of course still in place, but many of 
them that were crumbling then are now almost ob¬ 
literated by the incessant gnawing of the all con¬ 
queror. 

Many plans are now being cavassed touching our 
future movements, and while that question is still in 
abeyance we shortly shake off the snow and mud 
(’tis the close season for “dust”), of Vienna, from 
our feet and seek new fields. Venice is our most 
probable next halting place, where I devoutly trust 
we may part with the peculiarly nipping cold of the 
last three weeks and there actually experience at least 
traces of that languorous Venitian climate we read of, 
but with the rigors we hear of in all parts, I am not 
over-sanguine. 

It grows late, candles flicker and multiply unduly, 
and even “yawning” is not, at this writing, a 
“church-yard” monopoly, so adieu for the time 
being. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Only Letters 


159 


Venice , January 2jth, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

We left Vienna last Friday morning and 
came here over the justly famous Semmering Pass, a 
marvelous feat of daring and costly engineering, the 
road passing over, and under, around and through 
lofty mountains, deep awe-inspiring gorges and roar¬ 
ing torrents. In a single stretch of thirty-five of the 
zigzaggiest of miles, there are fifteen tunnels and 
eighteen viaducts, and much of this cost a quarter of 
a million per mile. The scenery was superb, and we 
ran for hours at a fair speed, now through ranges of 
snow-capped mountains, now through little sheltered 
stream traversed valleys, still green, past the quaintest 
of quaint little villages and the ruins of many fine 
mediaeval castles. All through both the Styrian and 
Carinthian Alps and bordering the Dolomite region, 
ruined castles seem indigenous. Perched aloft on 
apparently inaccessible peaks were many towered 
structures, for centuries now, crumbling to decay, 
whose groups of windows shrunken by distance to 
mere perforations suggest abandoned wasps’ nests 
with all their fiery tenants fled. So seemed these 
rotting relics of remote rascality for these were the 
erstwhile strongholds of those Robber Barons, heroic 
“tap roots” they, of the “blood and thunder” tales 
of our youthful days, when a lesser “James” (one 
“ G. P. R.”) flourished, long before the novel had so 
often lapsed to the psychologic autopsy or fitfully 
screened indecencies of the modern cult. 

From these rock-perched castles, incipient 



160 Only Letters 

“Trusts” were wont to descend upon the caravans 
of traveling merchants, and to prosper exceedingly 
by business methods quite as conspicuously strenuous 
as those to which divers organizations for plunder 
have “descended” in our day and generation. 
Theirs was a form of “merchandizing,” combining 
in itself the peculiar pleasures of persistent pilfering 
with the mad rush and excitement of a Friday bar¬ 
gain-counter. As my eyes scaled those lofty heights, 
so far remote from the scenes of their commercial 
activities, I quite commiserated those poor hard¬ 
working “ looters,” who in an ante-elevator, post 
trolley era, were forced to toil up those steep ascents 
when heavy laden with the hardly earned fruits of 
their nefarious industry. It was indeed a wonder- 
filled day, that finally closed upon us in a series of 
dark defiles, and after a long, and quite unfathomable 
halt at the Austro-Italian frontier a little short of mid¬ 
night, we rolled into the station here, saw our lug¬ 
gage piled on one gondola and personally “piling” 
into another, were soon gliding swiftly over the inky 
sinuosities of a succession of small waterways, 
whence we finally emerge through a super-stygian 
slit upon the Grand Canal and disembark at the 
“wave-ruled” steps of the “Grand Britania,” where 
a sleepy porter admitted us, and where a speedily 
sought oblivion claimed its willing prey. 

Early next morning, I looked out upon our opposite 
neighbor which you remember is the splendid Santa 
Maria Della Salute, but between us snow was falling 
thickly in great goose-feather flakes, and the roofs in 
every direction were covered with it to an extent that 


161 


Only Letters 

did not vividly recall “Childe Harold” in languorous 
mood, nor yet “ dolce far niente ” “ doings ” along 
lines laid down by F. Hopkinson Smith et al.—quite 
otherwise in sooth. Twas beyond contention 
“unco ” chilly, and the cold bone-searching as in an 
extra heavy topcoat (a Petersburg purchase, known 
en-famile as the Grand Duke “Serge”), I sat, a be¬ 
numbed knot of condensation in one of those re- 
trousee-nosed funereal pods, and watched the shiver¬ 
ing boatman in a brave red sash, but his nose a 
sapphire (with a “diamond” pendant) as he sculled, 
after the quite unapproachable manner of his cult. 
You who have seen Venice under sunny skies, well 
know that to a newcomer its marvelous wealth of 
beauty in every realm of art achievement is quite su¬ 
perior to any climatic handicap however severe. I 
fairly reveled in the glorious galleries, especially in 
the Academy, with the climate of a crypt, but where 
the superb canvasses quite condoned that distinctly 
sepulchral atmosphere, and I shivered bareheaded in 
many splendid shrines while rigors and raptures con¬ 
tested my possession; alas! not hotly. 

To-day, the unobscured sun is shining brightly, and 
’tis pleasantly warm, melting the snow which has quite 
flooded the piazza so deeply indeed that the shops 
can only be entered on boards laid out to the slightly 
raised centre of the great square. We have secured 
a charming gondolier, bright, intelligent, good- 
natured, and with at least a suspicion of “ get-about- 
with ” English. Having discovered my predilection 
for usually neglected, and that often means undesir¬ 
able places as well, he has taken me through some of 


162 Only Letters 

the least traveled canals, and therein have I seen 
strange sights. I am immensely interested in the 
splendid wrought ironwork in the older palaces, and 
constantly halt to study some window grille, or bal¬ 
cony treatment that are grand bits of design, and the 
forgeries of a master-hand. I took the merest super¬ 
ficial glance at St. Mark’s and the palace about dusk, 
had dropped in to a mass in the former, earlier in the 
afternoon, much as we test a stream of unknown 
depth with one tentative toe before plunging bodily 
in. I am ever curious to try the actual effect upon 
myself, of any famous work of art, to see how it 
actually impresses me, minus those “ready-to-wear ” 
raptures of Karl of Leipsic, and I take a deal of pleas¬ 
ure in so frequently really feeling his “double-stars.” 
I have yet to encounter any manner of non-accessory 
progression, equal to a gondola moving so swiftly 
and steadily under those powerful machine-like 
strokes, without so much as a tremor. Why, the 
very noise of the tiny waves against the advancing 
prow is the “lap” of aquatic luxury. Venice cer¬ 
tainly is supremely satisfying (when the sun shines as 
it does now). I have had the germs of many roseate 
dreams perish incontinently by the sterilization of un¬ 
lovely actualities, but not so here ; ’tis a wonderful 
tax to catch and store the host of charming images 
that spring upon one from every side. Was there 
ever seen before such stately squalor, such dignified 
decay, such a truly royal rotting, as these rows of 
crumbling palaces, patched in the crudest manner, or 
frankly stripped of the marble facings or rich stucco 
that made for her splendor when the “Queen ” was on 


Only Letters 163 

her Adriatic throne ? Could anything be more beau¬ 
tiful than the totality and details of those palaces ? 
Such lovely stone traceries and mullions, such lace 
wrought balconies of creamy, soot begrimed stone ? 
And the splendid ironwork! Well, it’s just one long 
gasp of pleasure to wander aimlessly along these 
canals and to potter through such dregs delectable. 
How great are the artistic possibilities of humble de¬ 
tails is constantly brought home to one here, as we 
thread some especially narrow waterway, and note 
the chance grouped bits of color furnished by the 
more intimate raiment of humble senors and senor- 
itas. Such “wash-drawings,” are wont to be of 
vivid hues, of flaming reds, or rich orange yellows, 
purples as of the grape, or, intense greens as of the 
fig untimely, all these of course, “honor” bits, and 
therefore “on the line.” Take such a narrow, water 
paved canon, with its either wall of solemn gray 
plaster, or peradventure, time-gnawed down to its 
sub-cuticle of dull crimson brick, and more or less 
ivy screened,—this for a frame, and then fill that 
frame with succeeding strata of these livid “duds” 
a-drying. Cap all with a ribbon of sky in the true 
Venetian blue, and the effect as you dart by, is almost 
enough to drive any one to,—well say to Aquarel- 
ling at the least. Was there ever a spot on earth that 
so fairly reeked with the picturesque as does this fair, 
lingering survival—was there ever ? 

As ever yours, 


F. 


164 


Only Letters 


Venice, January 29th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

A morning of marvels in St. Mark’s, 
followed by an afternoon of the concrete splendors 
of the Doges Palace, as I need scarce remind you, 
stands for a day full to its overflowing. I first saw 
St. Mark’s when the full sun was doing its best to 
scatter the twilight normal to that amazing interior. 
On my second visit (we made many), the sky was 
overcast, and the colors that had gleamed before, 
now glowed like embers in an ash of deepened 
shadows, and so we were able to study its amazing 
wealth of color under varying conditions. Could 
anything surpass the beautiful and artistic blending 
of such a vast array of colors as the infinity of differ¬ 
ent marbles supplies ? ’Tis a true bit of Oriental 
web, a surpassing rich stuff, in its harmonious in- 
weaving of the countless tones of that great and dis¬ 
tinctly bizarre collection. And then that overarching 
firmament of wonderful mosaics when the sun lends 
a dazzling brilliancy to its gold and color; and the 
domes that blaze with a like glory, and the infinity of 
loveliness, that in the countless columns bear up the 
portal arches with their ranks of marshaled mag¬ 
nificence; and then, under foot, that exquisite, un¬ 
dulating Alexandrine pavement, with its mimic waves 
of mosaic. Did you know that those “ waves ” were 
deliberate, and not the result of a settling of the floor, 
as many fancy ? Of course, I perfectly well know 
that you have seen all this, so why thus rhapsodize 
further ? 



Only Letters 165 

The florid splendors of the Ducal Palace where we 
spent a couple of hours, I will not serve to you as a 
mere rechauffe. You've seen it, you’ve poked your 
inquisitional nose into the Dubious Dungeons of 
Apocryphal Sufferers, and listened to that mummified 
myth re the “Bridge of Sighs," and have paid your 
lire to the re-lieable guide that shows bunches of 
tourists through the palace with a routine regularity 
that sorely tests the vitality of one’s personal interest. 
In Venice, thank heaven, beauties are far too potent 
to suffer blighting from even such a “frost" as the 
staff of guides to any “stock" sight, professionally 
engenders. I spent two hours in a careful, gyrating 
study of the capitals of the (thirty-six I think), 
columns under the Doges Palace, each one different 
from its mates, and each a masterpiece of art achieve¬ 
ment. Delightful heads with faces now grave, now 
gay, peep from masses of foliage, flowers, and 
tendrils, seemingly so frail that a gentle breeze might 
break them, but a close examination showed how 
perfectly each seemingly frail bit was backed and 
braced; verily art with those old gravers, carried with 
it a vast deal more than mere power to create the 
beautiful. 

I find myself constantly wandering back for yet 
another look at that glorious equestrian statue of 
General Coleoni, which you doubtless well remember, 
on its high pedestal in the little piazza, beside Sts. 
John and Paul. This is easily the most impressive 
equestrian monument I can recall, not excepting the 
much vaunted Peter the Great in classic mufti 
“doing" in bronze, I don’t remember how many 


166 Only Letters 

tons of preposterous prancing on the English Quay 
at Petersburg. Rauch’s Frederick the Great in Berlin 
is also a fine work, but I never saw anything quite so 
near “ Phil May,” as Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline 
Hill in Rome, and the “bumptious,” self-satisfied, 
jaunty air in which he sits his horse. I fancy the 
lack of stirrups, and the consequently, totally relaxed 
legs of “ M. A.” may account for his utterly undigni¬ 
fied, “ just-see-me-ride ” air. 

Of course we rowed out to the Armenian convent, 
and were taken through it after the manner of all 
who visit its not excessively interesting precincts; 
but our most delightful venture afloat was a gondola 
voyage to the little island of Torcello, six miles off, 
across the lagoon with our pleasant Guiseppe, and a 
merry shipmate enlisted for the voyage. We were 
favored with a deliciously warm, breeze-tempered 
afternoon, and apart from the actual ride, were well 
repaid by a visit to the little Basilica Cathedral of St. 
Maria, dating back to the seventh century (bits of it 
peradventure), with “ some ” fine mosaics of the 
twelfth century; what their actual “sum” was, 
would be a nice question to determine, but they 
certainly have been cleverly “restored” in perfect 
harmony with the originals of these quaint archaic 
figures. We climbed the lofty old Campanile, and 
from its crumbling, rickety summit won a fine view 
of the city, seemingly afloat on the broad lagoon, 
stretching far and wide in every direction; and then 
dropped into the inevitable little museum of local 
bits and finds. Glided home in the early twilight, 
passing groups of fishing-boats with those famous 


Only Letters 167 

red, and yellow, and russet sails, looking their very 
gayest and best in the setting sun—indeed quite 
“up" to the lurid prints of them in the shop 
windows. 

After a family council, wherein we “had words 
and parted," albeit in the most amiable manner 
possible, we once more divided our forces; the other 
three going west to the Riviera, while E. and the 
scribe elected to turn their faces to the actual east, 
and get them down to the land of Egypt, from which 
eld-land you will doubtless next hear from me. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Cairo , February 8th, 1901. 

My dear M-*. 

We left Venice at 2 p. m. for Brindisi, 
which is situated at the precise point that the “ spur ” 
would occupy were the “boot” of Italy so accoutred. 
We followed the coast line of the Adriatic, often in 
sight of its white capped waves, and much of the 
time over level plains of the rich volcanic tufa, we 
sped for monotonous hours through thousands of 
acres devoted to olives and vines, the first consider¬ 
able olive orchards I had seen, and of which our 
twenty miles per hour permitted a thorough in¬ 
spection. Many of the trees were evidently of 
great age, olive-trees now in bearing in Syria, are 
known to be at least two thousand years old. Per- 
adventure, by reason of inherent olivian perversity, 




168 Only Letters 

and of centuries of wrestling with the “ eurocledons " 
that sweep far inland from the Adriatic; many of 
these trees were rent and warped and twisted in a 
truly wonderful manner. In some the entire heart 
had rotted away, leaving two or three mere shreds of 
gnarled trunk to carry the tincture of olive (the “ sat 
sap ”), up to the little tufts of gray-green vitality that 
tip huge branches, time and tempest wrought into a 
veritable “delirium arboretum." The vast collection 
of these weird distortions in their diversity somehow 
suggested vegetable leprosy to me, and especially by 
moonlight, they looked like the creations of Dore, 
who you remember was so strong in unpleasant dis¬ 
tortions general and specific. Night overtook, and 
its succeeding morning found us still beset on either 
hand by olive yards incessant, and about noon, in a 
drizzling rain, we run into white and dreary little 
Brindisi and direct to the pier beside the little 
“Ishmeelite " of a craft, that along with other “ cap¬ 
tives” and merchandise, was to “carry us down to 
Egypt." 

Brindisi, originally Brundusium, a very ancient 
place whence many Crusaders had sailed (much in 
advance of us of course), upon their presumably holy 
mission, certainly is a very dull place in which to 
spend an enforced twelve hours, but is nevertheless 
famous for the dual ending of a peerless pavement 
and a preeminently passable poet, viz.: Virgil and the 
“ Appian Way.” Anon we board the Isis and 
set our “ carriages" in order against putting to sea. 
Built expressly to carry the Oriental mails to Port 
Said for transmission through the Suez Canal, speed 


Only Letters 169 

was the prime consideration, and with the lines of a 
Spanish “mackerel,” a tonnage of but one thousand 
seven hundred, and six thousand horse engines, the 
Isis tears through the rough choppy seas of the East¬ 
ern Mediterranean after a fashion that never fails to 
keep berths so well filled that the “larder” may 
“laugh” and stay “fat.” The head steward ad¬ 
mitted that they never provisioned for more than one 
half of their passenger list (about forty, I think), and 
then always had a “jolly lot of stuff left over.” We 
dined at anchor in the land-locked harbor, an un¬ 
broken ship’s company, and after taking on six 
thousand bags of mail, got under way in the small 
hours, and then commenced such a pitching, and 
boring, and tossing as I never experienced before. 
When the time came to dress next morning, which 
it did exceedingly betimes, I was forced to sit upon 
the floor and get into my clothes on the instalment 
plan, between “ pitches ” of course not of “ my own 
motion.” Breakfast was served in a small saloon on 
the lowest deck to just five souls, E., three officers 
and I, and after doing full justice to that meal, I cir¬ 
cumspectly worked my way to the upper deck, leav¬ 
ing E. firmly wedged between the table-edge and 
a bulkhead, comfortably settled for an indefinite 
period of letter writing. It was a glorious, Greek 
winter morning, with a fresh gentle breeze, and the 
little yacht (she was but that), fairly flew through the 
seething blue waters of the dancing white capped 
waves, rolling and bounding like a porpoise, as we 
skirted close at hand the Archipelago, of exquisite 
Grecian Islands,—Zante, Cephalonia, etc. As we 


170 Only Letters 

sped swiftly eastward after hours of gazing upon the 
beautiful Greek coast, the air began to lose its crisp¬ 
ness, and anon mellowed from balmy to sultry, and 
early on the morning of our third day, we sight the 
famous lighthouse of Port Said, run into the fine 
harbor, and “instanter" the Orient was upon us. 
Before the Isis had quite lost her headway, or ever 
an anchor-chain so much as rattled in the locker, we 
were surrounded by a swarm of boats from which 
up the gangways and over the rail, there poured in 
upon us a seething tide of screaming ragamuffins 
“complected" all the way from the new-saddle- 
hued Arab or Abyssinian, by darkling degrees to the 
Somali or Darfur man, and thence by chromatic 
lapses to the sooty Nubian, black as the memories of 
ingratitude. Hassan, Mahmoud, Ali, Selim, Abdalla, 
simply frantic all, verily yells and dancing “are met 
together ”; cries and curses have “ kissed each other ” 
in the throng of ruffians that raced up and down the 
crowded little decks, and pounced upon any and all 
baggage in sight. By the worst possible system,— 
if the total lack of any may be so styled, small boats 
carrying two or three trunks are the only means of 
getting ashore, and all luggage is lowered with a 
rope, bit by bit over the rail to the boat below. 
While in Paris, E. had invested in one of those huge, 
brown “piebald coffers," of the famous “Vouit- 
ton" vintage, a veritable monster, and when 
crammed as it was with the spoils of our recent 
Russian and Austrian campaigns, ’twas no light 
matter. I was quickly “ comandeered" by a 
lithe little Arab who after lowering my modest trunk, 


Only Letters 171 

cast his line about E.’s giant crate, and after much 
tugging and fervid Arabic, got it over the rail, and 
forthwith the “Circus” convened. The huge trunk 
went down on “the run ” and as the rope was too 
short to make the boat, when it came to the end of 
its tether, which it most expeditiously did, there was 
a sudden vision of bare feet waving in the circum¬ 
ambient air as one of the “ faithful ” set out to follow 
the Giaour’s gear “McGinty” ward, with a wild 
yell of terror. Instantly two big black men fortu¬ 
nately close by, threw themselves upon the departing 
Arab and so saved him in the nick of time from ap¬ 
plying in person at the Gates of the Mohammedan 
Paradise. Just how they managed to grab the man 
so quickly and violently without divorcing him from 
the various baggy “ boufantnesses ” that stand for 
clothes here, is quite past the kenning of any “ Frank¬ 
ish dog.” When the heavily gold mounted, “Man 
from Cooks” (since Rameses II, great son of Seti I, 
no one in all the borders of the extinct Pharaohs has 
had quite such a “pull” as “Cook,” that is to say, 
nothing “ B. C.” was ever “in it” with “ T. C.”), 
when he came aboard it was highly entertaining to 
see the fair sex swarm around him and to listen to 
the torrent of plaints and pleadings that were poured 
out before him, and the way in which he routed a 
bunch of extra adhesive “niggers” who were har¬ 
assing those upon whom the great T. C. & S. had 
set their “Cartouche,” was very close to sublime. 
Port Said was fairly sizzling under a regular Ameri¬ 
can July sun, as we drove through the dirty, and for 
the time, busy streets, to the station and took our 


172 


Only Letters 

cramped places in the super-stuffy cars, and after 
waiting a full hour and having bled piasters at every 
pore, we slowly steamed out of the rather squalid 
town,—for its seemly and “seamy ” sides alike, vide 
“ Rudyard ” the unapproachable. Once clear of the 
straggling suburbs, the Oriental panorama com¬ 
menced to unroll itself, and interest was quickly 
keyed up to the ultimate notch. On the left above 
the monotonous ridge of sand-hills bordering the 
great canal, loom the spars and stacks of huge ves¬ 
sels seemingly sailing over the sandy waste. On the 
right, sand illimitable, with here and there a spot of 
soil from which spring huge cacti, sparse tangled 
reeds, and stunted date-palms while in the distance, 
hovering over the sea beaches were vast flocks of 
snipe, flashing their silver-lined wings, as they wheel 
to and fro in the dazzling sunlight. Around the 
various stations from little spots of green, rise 
splendid palms that fairly tower above the tiny gar¬ 
dens and toy parks, and after perhaps two hours of 
this blend of desert and garden, we enter the good 
lands of the Nile delta with a greenness that i have 
never seen .equaled in any part of the world; it was 
simply amazing. As far as the eye could reach, and 
on either hand, it was a boundless sea of the most 
intensely vivid green, with here and there patches of 
the black soil being broken with a yoke of cows 
bound by the same rough beam to the same rude 
wooden, iron shod plows, that the children of Israel 
once followed in this goodly land of Goshen, while 
yet Joseph’s memory was also “green.” Clover is 
the main crop, a white variety, quite a bush here, 


173 


Only Letters 

growing two feet high and to its vast acreage the 
delta owes its present intense verdure. Wheat now 
three feet high, and almost ready for the inthrusting 
of the sickle, occasional orange groves, great masses 
of cactus with frequent groves of date-palms, make 
up a charming picture of still life, while the people 
at work, or at play, or at that most serious business 
of life in the Orient, “ lounging,” supply a most en¬ 
tertaining and constantly changing mutoscope. 

For many miles, indeed for hours, the highroad 
parallels the rails, and is quite close enough to enable 
one to note the tide of travel, and the strange sights 
that are of constant recurrence. An endless proces¬ 
sion passes along this ridge of black earth, beaten 
hard by quadruped, biped, aye and by “ uniped,” for 
1 noticed a number to whom Allah had been exceed¬ 
ingly merciful in guaranteeing them a livelihood with¬ 
out work, by depriving them of a leg, and so qualifi- 
ing them for the Mosque porch, plus the piasters and 
prayers of the pious. There is now in evidence a 
general movement that ever culminates in an adjourn¬ 
ment for dinner, so I must stop this, in the interest 
of that event of conceded import, and will resume 
our trans-delta trip later, possibly to-morrow. 

As ever yours, 


F. 



i 74 


Only Letters 


Cairo, February 9th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Well, here we are again, gazing from 
the windows of the lethargic train, upon long strings 
of tattered camels, now shedding their coats, and 
looking as if they had carelessly lain them down for 
a Rip Van Winkle sleep, without tar-balls or camphor 
in their shawls, and had fallen a prey to phenome¬ 
nally industrious moths. Great drowsy camels, 
shambling beasts, with poultice-like feet, plod along 
this black ridge in single file chained together, five, 
ten, fifteen, in a string, laden with great heaps of 
freshly-cut clover; others, with building lime or 
bricks, in rough sacks; oranges in crates, indeed, 
with ladings of every conceivable sort; the last “car” 
of these trains, i. e., the “caboose” camel, being 
laden with a dirty Arab dozing in the regulation sad¬ 
dle, a contraption quite like a “sawbuck,” only not 
quite so comfortable to loll in. 

Everywhere bullock wheels are slowly raising water 
from the shallow wells, the secret of this splendid 
fertility; wheels identical with those figured on the 
monuments four thousand years old, and doubtless 
precisely such as furnished water for the making of 



Only Letters 175 

those “tales ” of bricks of the bitter bondage. Here, 
too, was seen in great plenitude, and in the acme of 
assinine perfection the true Oriental donkey, usually 
of a pale gray, long of ear, of patience boundless, and 
of voice portentous; the donkey was everywhere, 
and under everything in transit. The mirth-tinged 
sapience of those long lashed, dreamy eyes, is ever 
eloquent of the absolute reverence in which bestrider 
and bestridden jointly hold deliberation. 

Like images of Buddha, great fat, turbaned Arabs, 
dressed in robes of a dirt-dimmed gaudiness, sit far 
aft on tiny little ones, calmly munching a yard of 
sugar-cane, with their long bare legs shining like a 
gun-stock thrust forward under the shade of those 
drooping ears, and with great slippers of green, or 
yellow, seemingly hanging from the great toe solus, 
but somehow they never drop off. Groups of old 
men ride in a cavalcade all chattering like magpies, 
and now and again giving their patient little beasts a 
thwack with a stick that they carry for that purpose. 
This “ thwacking ” seems to be done from sheer force 
of habit, and neither harms the beast, nor helps the 
pace a whit. The Arab is ever good to his beast, and 
as a result, his donkey is as affectionate and docile as 
a dog. 

Foot-passengers were many and various, old white- 
bearded men in long blue gowns, tottering on their 
staves; supple, panther-like, alert young fellows, 
with bright, pleasant faces and superabundant laugh¬ 
ter under the universal fez, with or without the turban 
coils outside of it. Strings of veiled women, some 
with great earthen water-pots gracefully balanced on 


176 Only Letters 

their heads, walking slowly in single file; others with 
a more or less naked child astride of her shoulder, as 
Oriental mothers carry them, all in dull blue, or lustre¬ 
less black cotton robes, silent, and distinctly depressed 
and depressing. Nubians of exceeding blackness, in 
white robes and turbans, mostly tall, powerful men, 
walking with great swinging strides, pack-peddlers, 
water-carriers, staggering under the weight of their 
water-skins that bloatedly suggest a none too recent 
death by drowning, rather than the universally pat¬ 
ronized goafs hide, thirst-quenching medium it ac¬ 
tually is. Last, but not least, positive swarms of 
scantily clad boys, shouting or running, playing tricks 
on each other; in short, being “ boys ” with the utter 
abandon that young Russia seems to have abandoned. 
Truly, it was a most entertaining journey, and the 
hours (about nine of them) slipped quickly by; one 
devoted to lunch at Ismalia, which might well be 
“D’Ismalia,” for nothing could be more dismal. 
About sunset, gardens increase in size, beauty, and 
frequency; orange groves multiply, houses spring up 
on every hand, and at dusk we run into a fine thor¬ 
oughly modern station, and are shortly after set down, 
per “buss,” on the terrace of, perhaps, the most 
thoroughly cosmopolitan caravansary on the face of 
this planet, the famous “ Shepheards.” The house, 
as usual, is full to overflowing with all sorts and con¬ 
ditions of men from every possible quarter, but we 
managed to get fair rooms at the back, overlooking 
the fine tennis courts and gardens; and even as I 
write this, the sharp “spat” of the “Lawford” 
drive, declarations of “ love,"and claims of “ vantage ” 


Only Letters 177 

float in through my open casement. The gardens are 
very large, and now great bushes are covered with 
red and white roses under the clumps of date palms, 
while other clumps of feathery bamboos and a host 
of tropical plants and shrubs, make up a delightful 
pleasaunce over which floats a perfect turquoise sky 
without a cloud, to so remain indefinitely, as rain is 
not to be expected for the next ten months or so. 

This is E.’s second visit, and as the keen edge of 
her original interest is a bit blunted, I am largely left 
to my own devices in the matter of sights, which are 
simply endless. Apropos of sights, “ Shepheard’s ” 
terrace fruitfully illustrates the axiom, “Everything 
comes to him who waits,” i. e., if he wait on that 
plateau of the protean. It is the strictly “upper crest ” 
of the-tallest wave of Cairene doings and happenings 
of all sorts, and from one of those delightful bamboo- 
lairs of luxurious lounging, drawn to the edge of that 
terrace, an incessant succession of entertaining 
“doings” is presented, from the tall, gorgeously 
caparisoned, lynx-eyed Greek who guards the steps, 
to the incessantly passing crowds. At the foot of 
the steps leading up to the terrace there ever lingers 
a group of dragomen, seeking patrons (often for their 
fleecing) and in the matter of costume, an odd 
lot they are to be sure. There stands Ali in a gorgeous, 
gold-embroidered jacket, crimson silk waistcoat, 
broad silken girdle, and the regulation dark red fez, 
but below the “equator,” Ali degenerates into a pair 
of scant, ill-fitting “hand-me-down” trousers of a 
boisterous pattern, and the most Occidental of shoes. 
Beside him stands Mamhoud of the single eye, who 


178 Only Letters 

wears an English “Derby,” with a time-tendered 
brim, a blue cutaway coat, and white duck waistcoat, 
connecting with that excessively baggy duality, the 
accredited nether garment of anywhere in the actual 
East, followed by a short hiatus of bare, brown leg, 
and ending in heelless yellow slippers. 

Tis really droll to see how these Egyptians, Copts, 
Turks, etc., blend the Eastern and Western styles of 
dress, sartorially speaking, ’tis a Giaour “winter 
lingering in the lap of a Moslem spring.’’ Here comes 
a lot of Bedouins from the actual desert in long bor- 
nous, and tall, had been white turbans bound around 
with ropes of black hair, in red and yellow shoes, an 
ugly, morose looking lot, some carrying long-bar¬ 
reled Moorish guns with pearl inlaid stocks such as 
you see in most museums, all with pistols and knives 
prominent in their wide girdles of gay stuffs, a pleas¬ 
ant lot these to meet on one’s way home to his oasis 
in the small hours! Now a Soudanese boy stops and 
shakes out of a greasy leathern bag, a couple of 
drowsy cobras, and with a blood-curdling pipe pro¬ 
ceeds to “charm ” them, i. e., to make them crawl a 
little, and raise their hoods in a presumably piaster’s 
worth of ex-jungle wrath. Then his partner fishes 
out of his sooty bosom two hideous lizards, drops 
them on the ground, picks up the cobras and winds 
them around his neck, etc. 

Now along comes a man, leading a great gray 
baboon which dances listlessly to the thrumming of 
an earthenware drum, until Soudan number one 
drops a cobra on the ape’s back, when he emits a 
terrific scream, and falls into a perfect paroxysm of 


179 


Only Letters 

terror, whereupon the “ cobraites ” and the “baboo" 
exchange the piquant pleasantries of irate Islam, while 
the terrace fairly roars with laughter. Next, an 
Egyptian girl juggler manages to slip past the Greek 
“Cerbeus,” and gains the terrace, where by some 
exceedingly clever magic she reaps quite a harvest of 
coppers, concluding with a fire eating seance, from 
which we are in a measure diverted by a safely ter¬ 
rific sword combat between a couple of Somali men. 
The dense crowd that normally blocks the street, now 
parts to allow of the passage of two “Saices,” gor¬ 
geous running footmen, who yell to herald the com¬ 
ing of some Egyptian swell, who soon appears in a 
landau, with much gold embroidery. The next act 
is a troup of street acrobats, then a Punch and Judy 
show, with Franco-Anglo dialogue, in the regulation 
staccato, and then the street is blocked by a long 
caravan of mud-plastered, swaying camels, laden 
with great piles of clover. Anon, a “skirl of the 
pipes ” is heard in the distance, and again the “ Camp¬ 
bells are coinin’,” this time as a squad of Seaforth 
Highlanders with trailed rifles, bonnets a'cock, and 
the gay red and white-checkered kilts, swinging 
above bare knees and snowy “spats,” in that per¬ 
fectly rhythmic unison that only comes of a deal of 
drill in the niceties of petticoatics. 

As the pipers pass a near-by donkey stand, the 
music suddenly becomes antiphonal, when a dozen 
or more of those powerful rather than pleasing vo¬ 
calists burst into song with “ brays ” that double-dis¬ 
count even those of “Bonny Doun” at their very 
“ bonniest.” 


i8o Only Letters 

A procession of fine French carriages slowly fol¬ 
lows in the wake of these screaming pipes, in which 
divers fair ladies of the court are wont to take the 
air, and to leave it tainted with musk, attar of rose, 
and other subtle stenches of the feminine Orient. In 
this parade there is much of “ low hair " and “ high 
color " cleverly advertised by the most transparent of 
veils, which latter acceptably stipple the far too lavish 
recourse to “paint" of the tint usually selected for 
“promiscuous urban decoration" by the super- 
hilarious. 

After a breathing spell along comes that acme of 
jubilant “ rows," a Moslem wedding procession, with 
the “ rumpety-trumpety ” tum-tum, of those ear¬ 
seizing pipes, with their Chicago-Midway “squeal." 
After the usual band of hired musicians and subsi¬ 
dized merrymakers, come two huge camels, mere 
swaying masses of color and tinseled trappings, 
bearing between them on long poles a grand nuptial 
dog-house affair, covered with gorgeous rugs, and 
credited with containing the peradventure blushing, 
but certes profusely perspiring bride. And so it goes 
on, day in and day out; all sorts of life and gayety 
are served incessantly, either in front of Shepheard’s, 
or in the actual “fold " itself. Tis really quiet here, 
but for a brief space, at the two diurnal extremities, 
and at one of them, which is now,—this instant, 
I’m going to look up some breakfast—so adieu until 
later. As ever yours, 


F. 


Only Letters 


1 81 


Cairo , February nth , 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Immediately upon our arrival, I hired me 
a dragoman, a Copt, educated at some English mis¬ 
sion school, speaking good English but a never-failing 
mine of sporadic stupidity, and on the whole, con¬ 
siderably more promiscuously good-for-nothing than 
he ever suspected me of discovering. He knew his 
way about the city fairly well, spoke French and 
Arabic, but was as innocent of any initiative, and as 
free from the oriental equivalent of “gumption" as 
any child of two. 

Cairo, as you doubtless know, has one thoroughly 
tame end, actually a thin, shop-worn slice from a 
stale Paris which is quite apart from the old native 
quarter with its mixture of scarcely tampered-with 
orientalism, and of the most palpably sham antiqui¬ 
ties for the levying of tribute from the heaven sent 
tourist, but much of the native town is beyond ques¬ 
tion of great age, and of surpassing interest. 

Naturally I soon drifted into the famous bazaars, 
and throughout our stay I never wearied of the ex¬ 
haustless mine of mingled interest and amusement 
furnished by its bewildering maze of winding pas¬ 
sages radiating like the arms of an octopus from nar¬ 
row streets, simply “stuffed” with man and beast. 
The Muski, a sort of “ Bowery,” with its shops filled 
with European goods and “antiques of all sorts, 
scarce cool enough to handle,” runs directly across 
the old city. From it on either side branch out those 
narrow lanes that so swarm with life and color, and 



182 


Only Letters 

from these again yet narrower paths traverse the 
whole vast system of bazaars. I scarce know how 
to chronicle the host of strange sights and sounds of 
that malodorous Babel, but will at least give you a 
few of my impressions. 

Overhead the sky is a turquoise, just a bit “ off 
color," running to purple, and against it, to and fro 
on motionless wings, a small brown vulture floats in 
wide circles, sometimes in flocks of twenty or more, 
often mere shifting dots against the blue, but fre¬ 
quently descending to perch on some old minaret, or 
other coign of vantage, whence to swoop into the 
street and rob some wretched cur of the scraps 
thrown out by butcher, or fishmonger,—albeit what 
a Moslem provisioner discardeth is indeed “meet” 
for vultures. Standing in one of the narrow lanes 
and gazing at these birds, quite a la “ Little Johnnie," 
1 feel a blast of warm air on my neck and turning 
quickly, find a “ Ship-of-the-Desert ” with its panting 
“jibboom" right under my ear; a great camel chew¬ 
ing his cud with a dull grinding sound, as he creeps 
noiselessly along on those huge, pudgy feet, and after 
the manner of his kind, distending his great flabby 
upper lip, and giving me one of those sleepy, super¬ 
cilious, camelesque glances as I step briskly aside, 
while his handsome young driver laughs softly and 
mutters something quite lost on me but doubtless, 
“Didn’t you 4 see that hump!'" in very choice 
Arabic of course. 

An extra narrow lane enters the shoe bazaar, in 
whiclv'slippers, chiefly of red and yellow morocco, 
hang in bunches like bananas, hang in rows, or in 


Only Letters 183 

single pairs, or are piled in great heaps on the bench 
that is at once counter, shop front, private office and 
reception-room, shoes by thousands, nothing but 
shoes, selling, sold, and being soled. The shops 
of all sorts are as a rule tiny, many mere boxes, 
eight feet long being a fair front, and ten of depth 
quite common, indeed, they often suggest the cast 
chrysalis of a piano, in which the merchant can, with 
a stick, easily reach his stock without rising from his 
cushion or uncrossing his comfortably trussed, bare 
brown legs. In another quarter, an incessant rat-tat- 
tat proclaims the brass-workers, making that cheap 
repousse and chased stuff, which finds its brazen 
way all over the world; the best of it not so bad, if 
not seen en masse, but much of it mere trash. 

Now, led by the nose, we drift into the perfumery 
quarter, where a long list of those premeditated 
stenches so dear to the Moslem heart is offered; the 
fluids in tall, slender blue-green glass bottles, highly 
suggestive of “genies," incantations, etc.; the dry- 
powders in great heaps of various hues, while of 
“ henna," the herb used to stain finger-tips, and often 
the entire palm as well, there werebushels. “Henna" 
is the Egyptian “ privet," which Mohammed said 
was “ chief of the flowers of this world, and of the 
next." 

Here too are thousands of those heavily perfumed 
wooden-bead amulets, the wearer of which is guar¬ 
anteed high favor with the unseen powers, unfortu¬ 
nately, however, at the cost of being in “ bad odor” 
with those visible. One horrible old witch, quite 
toothless, did her very utmost to sell me one at a 


184 Only Letters 

preposterous price, in short tried hard to ‘'stick me” 
in "gum Arabic/’ but quite in vain. Perfumery 
Lane is ever thronged with the (theoretically veiled) 
bizarre beauties of " Araby the blest ” with bold, 
black almond eyes, deeply underlined and brows 
painted into a continuous arch of most insistent black¬ 
ness, cheeks aglow with roses of glaring hues upon a 
sub-soil of chalk, hands henna stained to a rusty 
purple, and often covered with rings and the bare 
arms with bangles; almost invariably in black cotton 
or silk robes with bare feet thrust into extra high- 
heeled, French slippers, a few superlatively fine 
ladies wear silken hose of pronounced "audibility,” 
but the unbusked foot far outnumbered these. 

Next we stroll through the silver workers’ quarter, 
and past the noisy beaters of copper vessels, 
some of these of very "fetching” shapes, but over 
all the manufactured din, there flows the "whine” 
of commerce. "Gentleman! Laidee! see my beau¬ 
tiful tings it cost you not one piaster for look, ver 
sheap, too; just one little minute, if you please, laidee, 
gentleman! ” They pester you incessantly, and to stop 
and touch anything, or evince any perceptible inter¬ 
est, is to have half a dozen of these rival "spiders” 
assail you in chorus and strive to coax you into 
some one of their dirty little "webs.” 

The showing of rugs, stuffs, portieres, and of ap¬ 
plique work certainly is fine and if one had plenty of 
time (and its equivalent), a lot of patience, plus a lit¬ 
tle Arabic, he could doubtless get some really good 
things at not above double their local value in place 
of the regulation fourfold to tourists. 


Only Letters 185 

Everywhere are great heaps of sugar-cane cut into 
convenient lengths for chewing, and you meet doz¬ 
ens with a seeming corn-stalk thrust into their une¬ 
motional countenances, which they chew with a 
placid continuity distinctly camelesque. Spread out 
on a theoretically white cloth, and it resting directly 
on the land of Egypt are piles of curious flat loaves of 
the universal bread of the common folk, apparently 
of rye or buckwheat and of a peculiar dull, leaden 
hue, covered with large brown blotches; they sug¬ 
gested a lot of scorched sad-iron “ holders ” down 
with the measles, and were desperately unattractive, 
but they nevertheless sold freely. The Oriental 
seems to “go in” for fried things, witness, 
huge brass platters piled high with a variety 
of fat, shining tidbits, kept sizzling by means of 
charcoal braziers. Little flat cakes of a vivid green, 
like spinach “fish cakes ” were such a thing possible, 
have a wonderful sale, and as for various cloying 
sweets, all cheap, and mostly “nasty,” they are sold 
by the ton. Good fruit is scarce, bar Mandarino 
oranges and dates, the last delicious and of course 
very cheap. With an unceasing clattering together of 
two small brass dishes, vendors invite attention to a 
variety of tepid tipples of the lemonade and sherbet 
class, which they serve from earthen or brass jars, 
in bowls of brass, without the unnecessary delay in¬ 
cident to the washing of those bowls between 
patrons. 

I was vastly interested in constantly recurring 
illustrations of the wonderfully trained Moslem great 
toe, which is cleverly employed in various “ footi- 


186 Only Letters 

crafts,” and it is astonishing to see what a member 
we devote principally to “suffering” from, is here 
made to “ do ” with. These Arabs are able to grasp 
parrot-like, almost anything between the great and 
next succeeding toe, turn their small grindstones so, 
grasping the handle of the stone which is mounted 
on a little low frame so as to be “ footy,” hold boards 
while sawing them, and guide the chisel when turn¬ 
ing, really exquisite things, on lathes of a type known 
possibly before Merenptah “turned” “his back 
on Moses ”—a preposterous little rattle-trap of a con¬ 
trivance, driven with a bow and string. 

Many travelers “do’’these bazaars on donkeys but 
such miss a lot by that lazy plan, as the leisurely 
footman, especially if he be built on highly inquisitive 
lines, sees and enjoys a vast deal in “marginal 
notes,” utterly lost to the mounted “visitor,” where 
crowds are perennially dense. The Cairene donkeys, 
usually of a pearl gray, are very handsome, highly re¬ 
garded and well treated by their drivers, who keep 
them carefully clipped and almost all have “dados” 
to their hind, and often front legs as well. These 
decorations are produced by a really artistic handling 
of the shears and several parallel lines of decorative 
motifs are produced, so that the underpinning of a 
really swell “donk” strongly suggests a quartette of 
“boiled hams” in their gala costume of paper 
frills. 

To look down one of these dark, fetid little lanes, 
with the overhanging roofs and projecting, closely- 
latticed windows, carries one straight back to the 
storied days of Harum al Rashid, calif of Bagdad, 


Only Letters 187 

and to the classic “Thousand and One Nights En¬ 
tertainments.” 

Here comes white-turbaned Ali Baba, with a 
beautiful silver beard astride of his donkey, with a 
large earthen jar dangling in front of each knee; vases 
a bit contracted perhaps, to “sardineize” bandits in, 
but then as every one knows, robbery is a small 
“business” anyhow, anywhere, anytime. How¬ 
ever skilful that band of twoscore scalded “apoc¬ 
rypha ” may have been when in the flesh, even they 
might learn much from a post-graduate course in ap¬ 
plied rascality taken in these bazaars where the ne¬ 
farious expert flourishes like the rose of Persia. 

Business hours count for little here, and any mer¬ 
chant when he hears the long-drawn-out muezzin 
droned from some near-by tower may unfold his 
legs, thrust his feet into the waiting slippers and 
shuffle off to his mosque. 

Gaining the house of prayer, those slippers join a 
long rank of others discarded at the portal, and the 
great fountain in the outer court, often a very large 
and imposing affair is sought and after the prescribed 
purification of head, hands and feet, he takes his 
place on the mats before the sacred Kibla, the richly- 
ornamented prayer-niche, in the wall facing Holy 
Mecca. Numerous prostrations, with a droning of 
prayers from the hallowed Koran follow, and anon 
he saunters out to the row of slippers, dons his own, 
possibly throws a copper with his blessing to some 
crippled beggar in the way, and straightway flaps 
him back to his merchandizing and to the fleecing of 
such fresh Gaiour “ lambs ” as Allah may send his 


188 Only Letters 

way. Women and children of the poorer classes 
fairly swarm in the bazaars; mothers carrying their 
almost naked children astride a shoulder and holding 
them “in situ” by a little brown or yellow leg, the 
child also usually holding fast to its mother’s hair, 
or veil of black cotton stuff. 

I was much interested in a primitive farrier making 
donkey shoes, the smith seated on the ground en¬ 
circling a very small anvil with his bare legs. A tiny 
fire beside him was kept aglow by a boy of ten, with 
a leathern bag having a tin spout which bag he 
slowly squeezed between his palms and actually 
managed to keep a good welding heat, while his 
master’s wielding of the hammer was little short of 
marvelous. 

Beggars of course, swarm everywhere, many with 
no capital in the business save the “whine” of the 
country, and the upturned hand as they cry inces¬ 
santly for “bucksheesh.” Others amply capitalized 
with an absent, or shrunken limb, or some gaping 
sore perennially horrible by the blessing of Allah. 
Such reap a never-failing harvest in piasters (and 
doubtless envy), from the skilful exploitation of their 
disgusting repertories. 

The confusion of houses in old Cairo is inconceiv¬ 
able, shops, mosques, dwellings, all jumbled up to¬ 
gether, anyhow; courtyards leading into other court¬ 
yards with yet others beyond forming a bewildering 
maze that no stranger un-“ dragomanned ” could 
traverse, and to miss the seeing of which, were in¬ 
deed a “Dane-less” “Hamlet.” The older of the 
two old Cairos, said to date back eight hundred 


Only Letters 189 

years or more, is a mile below the existing city, a 
mere mass of wretched ruins inhabited by an appro¬ 
priate population, in a squalor altogether unique in 
my experience. Once a splendid city abounding in 
architectural beauties, of which an occasional shred 
of marble magnificence or a fitful gleam of granite 
grandeur, is built into some wretched hut of sun- 
fired mud bricks wherein the wretched Fellahin 
swarm like rats. 

But this letter must have an ending sometime, and 
now is the fitting time, for here comes ‘‘El Stupid ” 
my dragoman to carry me off to a famous coffee 
house for a Turkish rendition of that adorable berry. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Cairo , February 12th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

This morning we, viz.: “El Stupid’ 
and I set out on a tour of the leading mosques which 
I found of exceeding interest, commencing with the 
famous Talun, said to have been built a. d. 879, 
which I don’t believe. Like most of the larger 
mosques, this has a great inner court with a fountain 
in the centre at which curious structure, usually a 
square or hexagon affair of white marble, and often 
of great size, a few of the faithful are ever washing 
their heads, hands and feet, prior to entering the 
Liwan, or actual sanctuary. Of the interior decora¬ 
tions, enough remains to at least hint at former 




190 


Only Letters 

splendors, such as the Kibla, or sacred niche in the 
wall toward Mecca, before which prayer is wont to 
be made; and the tall mimbar or pulpit, approached 
by a flight of steep steps beautifully inlaid with ebony 
and ivory, from it the Koran is read and expounded. 
Bits of this inlaid work and scraps of the ornate mo¬ 
saic of the Kibla have been stolen either by “Frank- 
ish-Dogs” or by Moslem-dittos, for sale to such for¬ 
eign profaners, and the whole vast structure is in la¬ 
mentable decay, save its beautiful arches, its general 
contour and some wonderful screens of pierced stone 
and alabaster, which are still intact and of marvelous 
beauty. 

The government is far too poor (and progressive ?) 
to restore these mosques, of which there are many, 
and which in time, and despite tentative patchings, 
must become, as quite a number already have, mere 
ruins. In many that we visited were the tombs of 
their founder, or of some Moslem saint, curious 
structures of stone, like a short, overturned bench, 
and often decorated with incised work gilded, and in 
some instances covered with a fine rug. At one 
time, they buried their dead (a la Sioux Indian ?) in a 
sitting posture, and with the face of course Mecca- 
ward, which accounts for this memorial condensa¬ 
tion. In some of these sacred places, relics of Ma¬ 
homet are of constant recurrence, especially hairs of 
his beard which, of course, that strenuous saint could 
grow at will, to meet any demand for such hirsute 
survivals. I thought this sort of relic a decided 
advantage over certain osseous reminders of other 
types of erstwhile saints found throughout Christen- 


Only Letters 191 

dom where the supply is (or should be) limited, 
although I myself have been shown skulls in du¬ 
plicate, of some worthy, of course one being per¬ 
force a “ replica.” I was especially interested in the 
Mosque Gamia-El-Azhar, i. e., the “blooming” fnot 
to be confused with that shred of British “Argot” 
“bloomin’ ”), but so named in a. d. 973, in honor 
of Fatima-ez-Zahra, daughter of the prophet whose 
“quiver” knew no lack of female “ arrows,” 
(darters). This Fatima was doubtless an especial 
favorite to be so honored, as it is said she had no less 
than sixty-nine duly qualified competitors for the 
post of only daughter. 

1 wish I might swallow the “dates” that Baedeker 
and the dragomen offer with the same unquestioning 
faith that I exercise in those to be found at every 
turn, great luscious lumps of edible chronology for a 
trifle of “tuppence.” This Gamia or University 
Mosque, is a series of wide piazzas opening on their 
four sides, on the usual spacious central court with a 
ramification of halls opening beyond these, the total 
floor space being very great, and covered with thick 
straw mats occupied when we called by more than 
two thousand students of all sizes and ages from five 
to five and seventy; the total number on the rolls is 
about seven thousand. It certainly was a wonderful 
sight and sound, to stand and sweep that sea of 
shaven heads, turbanless of course, the younger boys 
-being taught to read, and the older ones conning the 
inevitable and quite indispensable Koran. They all 
sit cross-legged in graded groups around an instruc¬ 
tor, each with his book held close to his face, and 


192 


Only Letters 

then they rock to and fro incessantly, droning their 
lessons in a sleepy, monotonous chant that by reason 
of its volume swells to a continuous muffled roar. It 
is the accepted theory here that this swaying motion 
of the head while conning a task, keeps the brain 
active; and to see two thousand human pendulums 
(pendula ?) all swinging at once and in every possible 
direction, was certainly droll, but before entering the 
study-court, “ El Stupid” warned me not to smile or 
show any traces of amusement or levity, as it 
would be dangerous in such a mob of Giaour-hating 
fanatics. 

These were the two most interesting mosques of 
the dozen or so visited, many approached by narrow 
filthy lanes, and penned in by strange rookeries of 
buildings, but all of them suggesting more or less 
antiquity, and by their few survivals, the former 
glories of a splendid Saracenic architecture. 

From the citadel crowning a lofty hill, with its 
garrison of red-coated “Tommy Atkinses,” the view 
at sunset was marvelous indeed, when had from the 
southern end of the famous mosque of Mohammed 
Ali which is faced entirely with yellow Oriental 
alabaster, a soft translucent stone with a splendor 
saponaceously suggestive, but with which when ex¬ 
posed to the elements, havoc is speedily wrought, 
and it is now fairly honeycombed with decay, and 
looks vastly like a palace done in “ gorgonzola.” 
From a lofty terrace you sweep the entire gray-green 
city, with its flat roofed houses, its countless domes 
and minarets, and the great palms that spring from 
the white-walled gardens and mosque courts, the 


193 


Only Letters 

jumble of nondescript buildings into which the dis¬ 
tant bazaars resolve themselves, and beyond them the 
broad green ribbon with the silver (in the distance 
only), Nile, bisecting it, and beyond all, sharply out¬ 
lined against the lustrous greenish-purple horizon, 
those marvelous man-made mountains of masonry 
(certes, not “ free-masonry ”), the Pyramids of Gizeh. 
I stood and gazed upon this wonderful scene until 
the greens were lost in a dull metallic lustre, from 
which the oncoming night stole its sheen, and sub¬ 
stituted a purple pall, which in turn deepened slowly 
to the velvety darkness of the Cairene night over 
which the stars gleam with a seeming superadded 
brilliancy, as we drove through the quiet streets to 
the foot of that gay microcosm the “Shepheard" 
terrace. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Cairo , February 13th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Yesterday E. and I had a field day for¬ 
sooth, embarking at 9 a. m., on a Cook steamer 
at the steel bridge for an all day excursion up 
the Nile to the site (no longer a visibility), of 
Memphis, and a trip across the country to some 
ancient marvels at Sakara, including an especially 
fine tomb, recently discovered. 

The party was a typical “Cookie” with its usual 
quota of absent men; of obvious aunts, and of perad- 




i 94 


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venture nieces, with a liberal seasoning of spectacled 
Minervas, recreationing between sessions; while 
over all the rosy flush of many and much conned 
“Baedekers,” recalled the famous lotus which this 
historic stream erstwhile bore upon its muddy bosom. 

I was considerably exercised over a certain mys¬ 
terious black cloth bag, carried by a tall, lank Yan¬ 
kee with a keen, homely face, and an indescribable 
something about him which enabled me to recognize 
in his rather “ loud ” country made suit, the scabbard 
of a genius, which it was. 

One of Cook’s regular dragomen conducted the 
party, and was even more absurd than the average of 
his cult. The man was a pseudo-Frankish treatment 
of a Moslem motif with the curious transition cos¬ 
tume already mentioned, and with the true Oriental 
genius for the apocryphal, plus a profound igno¬ 
rance that left no source of misinformation unex¬ 
ploited to the obvious disgust of many of the party 
who were out for definite improvement. 

On our left, a few miles above the city, a pleasant 
group of white buildings on an elevated plateau over¬ 
shadowed by palms and of a general greenness, is 
the artificial oasis of Helouan, a famous health resort 
where almost the entire English speaking population 
is perpetually “better than last week,” and ever 
offers in melancholy evidence the expert coughing of 
constant practice. Steaming up the wonderfully 
muddy stream, we meet numbers of grain-laden 
native boats, with their huge lateen sails, a sprinkling 
of dahabeas and yachts; one flying “Old Glory” at 
the peak, and reach our destination about noon. 


195 


Only Letters 

This proved to be a high mud bank (Bedrashen on 
the map) on the top of which and silhouetted against 
the sky, stood a rank of quiescent donkeys with a 
mob of tattered Arab boys dancing around them, and 
fairly rending the air with their yells. As soon as we 
walked up the steep gangplank and landed, that 
mob fell upon us, and in a twinkling we were divided 
up into the donkey freighting units; we actually 
were. To E. was given “Gingerbread/' a poor, 
rickety, sad-eyed mite of a beast which underwent 
such a total eclipse from her skirts, that when mounted 
she seemed enthroned upon a butler's tray, the 
“stand” for which had in a moment of abstraction 
uncrossed its legs, presumably to rest them. My steed, 
“Yankee Doodle,” was a large cylindrical creature of 
such pronounced rotundity that he could only be rid¬ 
den in acute parenthesis; indeed nothing short of a 
pair of calipers or a “wish-bone” could adequately 
bestride him. He had a mouth of adamant; his ears 
were huge, and in his retrospective eye there gleamed 
the baleful light of a smoldering malevolence. “ Y. 
D.” early discovered my distaste for riding at top 
speed on the extreme outer edge of high embank¬ 
ments, and accordingly throughout our association of 
several hours, I served a continuous, anxious, and 
most unwilling apprenticeship as “verger,” to the 
intense joy of his little Nubian driver. Apropos of 
these donkey boys, and indeed of Oriental adoles¬ 
cence in general, they may be sorted into two all 
embracing classes, viz., those who know just enough 
English to be vastly amusing, and those who know 
quite enough to be flamboyant nuisances. 


196 Only Letters 

We started inland, and in sooth it was a motley 
cavalcade traversing the amazingly green fields on 
narrow winding embankments, and passing through 
several villages of those horrible hovels built of sun- 
dried mud bricks; mere hollow clods that are the 
hopeless homes of the most dirty, downcast, desolate 
and dejected swarms of people that ever I saw—no 
one clean, or decently clad, and the narrow fetid 
lanes, given over to stagnant pools and rubbish of all 
sorts, plus cattle, pigs, and “kids” quadruped and 
biped. We soon descend into a wide, fertile valley 
and ride through splendid groves of tall date-palms, 
in one of which groves a few utterly shapeless 
mounds of black earth are pointed out as the site of 
the former mighty Memphis, now utterly effaced, 
but doubtless a marvelously rich field for some future 
excavator. Coming up out of this delectable grove, 
we pause to view two enormous recumbent statues 
of the Great Rameses II, credited with being the first 
to run a Hebrew “ sweat shop ” (on bricks), and who 
certainly proved himself no “man of straw.” Here 
he lies flat on his royal back twice, once in pink 
granite and once in a fine creamy limestone; each 
figure I should say, forty feet long (or high ?), and 
both splendid examples alike of Egyptian art, and of 
the climate’s astonishing conserving powers. The 
limestone colussus was presented to the British Gov¬ 
ernment years ago, but no attempt has ever been 
made to remove it, and in a wooden shed it lies prone 
on the desert sand, when we should be able to see 
it in London and erect. 

I climbed to the somewhat inaccessible toes of His 


197 


Only Letters 

Horizontal Highness in pink granite; strolled up a 
giant leg, and sauntered over the graceful swell of a 
most imposing stomach, en route to the mighty 
thorax. As I finally crossed a ten-quart “dimple" 
and stepped down by way of an ear out of his collos- 
sally complacent countenance, I was reminded of 
Lamb, ever delightful, and often dyspeptic, who, 
when recommended by his physician to “take a 
brisk walk on an empty stomach,” responded with 
“ W-who-whose ? ” 

Turning away from these marvels, vegetation soon 
dwindles, then utterly vanishes, and the “Cookie" 
laden donks are plodding in the deep yellow sands 
of the sure enough Sahara, with here and there minor 
pyramids in view, and the great step-pyramid of 
Sakara in the distance. We slowly arrive at the 
famous tomb of Mera, of which the date is about 
3950, and which was discovered and explored in ’93. 
It contains thirty-one chambers and corridors which 
are marvels of exquisite and quite unimpaired work¬ 
manship. We enter, led by the coagulated “Cookies," 
working off the stock of preposterous questions 
accumulated during the enforced interregnum of the 
donkey voyage (other things than “ potages " may 
be marred by “too many," etc., etc.), and the price 
of inexpensive gregariousness is at times the comfort 
and pleasure of the non-participant. Passing a mod¬ 
ern iron gate each receives a tallow dip and falls in 
behind (two persons very much behind), the “Man 
from Cooks." The walls, floors, and lofty ceilings 
of these tombs are of a fine-grained creamy white 
limestone readily graven, while yet hard enough to 


198 Only Letters 

carry unslurred the most minute lines of glyptic de¬ 
tail. We stroll through these chambers in a regular 
sequence, making their circuit, and returning to the 
corridors after each one, and by holding our quite 
inadequate candles close to the walls of beautifully 
fitted blocks, see the marvelous mass of carvings that 
were wrought where we now look upon them, 
nearly 4,000 years back. All of these walls up to the 
ceilings are thickly covered with sculptures in low 
relief, usually in parallel lines, and treating of an 
endless variety of subjects: hunting, hawking, fish¬ 
ing, every process of husbandry (including marriages), 
all sorts of mechanical operations, sailing boats, row¬ 
ing dittos, great barges, etc., etc. War, of course, 
in all of its phases was a constantly repeated theme,— 
but why further details of an endless variety of sub¬ 
jects superbly treated by chisel and brush ? The 
actual carving was exquisite, most of the figures 
being in a low relief, but so masterfully treated that 
they seemed to have thrice their actual projection. 
In a group or procession every face is different, not a 
mere reduplication of a single set pattern, but each 
evidently a portrait with the varying facial expres¬ 
sions, and the features often portrayed with a fidelity 
of execution to be looked for in a fine cameo. 

The entire series of rooms was a gallery of splen¬ 
did glyptic art as fresh and, with few exceptions, as 
perfect as when executed. Some of the figures had 
been painted; the colors Indian red, deep blue, yel¬ 
low, green, black and white, with some gilding; all 
still quite bright, but I thought, vastly less artistic than 
the plain, creamy white of the bare stone. On it the 


199 


Only Letters 

most minute ornamentations of a tiara, bracelet, or 
ankle ring, the fronds of the feathers in a peacock fan 
(some of this detail was amazing), could be seen to 
perfection even with our feeble candles. 

Apropos of light, it was here that the mystery of 
that black cloth bag was solved by the tall Yankee 
producing from it, with the remark “this rather lays 
over candles, eh?’' an acetylene-gas cycle lamp 
brought from Haverhill, Mass., for this very use. It 
is needless to say that this man suddenly developed 
wonderful “magnetism,” and had many close fol¬ 
lowers. 

Emerging once more into contemporaneous day¬ 
light, we again mount, “ Y. D.” now quite docile in 
the deep desert sand, and in twenty minutes reach the 
dilapidated house formerly occupied by Mariette Bey, 
the famous French Egyptologist, who lived here sev¬ 
eral years while excavating for his own and the 
Egyptian governments. On its wide, stone-flagged 
piazza, and under a welcome screen of palm branches, 
we make a semi-satisfactory lunch (brought with us), 
the which you will now consider me so occupied 
with as to be forced to lay this letter aside along with 
what befell us later in the day. 

Ever yours, etc., 

F. 


Cairo , February ijth, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Having finished that lunch, we engage 
in a brisk verbal skirmish with a mob of the descend- 



200 


Only Letters 

ants of the original “Forty,” who suddenly appeared 
from seemingly nowhere, and who strive to sell us 
“genu-whine,” antique scarabs (Connecticut pat¬ 
tern), beads, coin bangles, and mummy hands, these 
latter offered furtively, but said to be artificial, with 
celluloid finger nails, and in sooth certainly are very 
“deathlike” copies. 

Again we turn from “gay to grave,” and now visit 
the amazing rock tombs devoted to the conservement 
of the precious cadavers of the Sacred-Bulls of Apis, 
a huge rambling cavern quarried out of the solid rock 
to a length of nearly four hundred feet, with small 
chapels on either side, some forty in all. In twenty- 
four of these alcoves, or chambers, are the gigantic 
sarcophagi, in which was bestowed his “Holy Bull¬ 
ness,” in a manner well calculated to discourage 
(body snatching), i. e. y “jerked beef.” Each sarcoph¬ 
agus was a single block of flinty black or red gran¬ 
ite (no limestone this time), thirteen feet long, by 
seven wide, by eleven feet deep, with sides eight 
inches thick, the bull space being excavated with 
bronze tools out of that huge block of adamantine 
stone. Oh! what an “undertaking,” you may well 
say. The lid of this casket was a single slab of the 
like stone, perhaps eighteen inches thick; in the cen¬ 
tre tapering to ten at either edge, and the entire weight 
of these bull boxes is estimated to be sixty-five tons. 
Just imagine the labor of hewing out twenty-four 
coffers, each one from a solid block of a stone that 
would sorely tax the best tool-steels of our day. 

It is known that these wonderful stone workers 
possessed the art of hardening bronze tools to a de- 


201 


Only Letters 

gree never yet equaled by any of our indurating proc¬ 
esses. It certainly did, at this distance, seem to be 
a great waste of time, devoted to the simple conserva¬ 
tion of “dried beef," and as I thought of “Cudahy," 
and of “Swift," and “Armour," and recalled the 
“embalmed beef" of our recent war, I decided that 
we had made considerable progress since the eight¬ 
eenth dynasty, and the “good old days "of Ame- 
nophis III, “bully boy "that he was. These rock 
tombs are without any carving or ornamentation other 
than a few scarcely noticeable inscriptions on the 
walls, and small labels on the sarcophagi, telling who 
“he was," and when “put up"—or down. 

The temperature of this Cavern was 8o°, and the air 
so very dead (and seemingly long buried), that we 
were glad to reach the outer world again, and the 
delicious breeze that swept over us from the Nile 
basin. Especially ready for “superficial Egypt," was 
a plump old Englishman, who had insisted that it 
must be “quite damp you know, so far under 
ground," and who therefore wore a heavy ulster (as 
I recall it with a fur collar) to offset those anticipated 
inclemencies. He came to the surface “ purple," and 
stood apart from us seemingly swearing softly to his 
impassive wife, as he “told his beads” of perspira¬ 
tion;—in sooth ’twas a generous rosary. 

Another short ride brought us to the tomb of Ti, a 
man of vast wealth, and the “ right-hand " of some 
monarch away back in the fifth dynasty, about 2850. 
This tomb was, in general, similar to that of Mera, 
though larger and with its carvings and decorations 
yet more exquisite. This “ Ti " must have been quite 


202 


Only Letters 

a “beau” in his day, but certainly not a “four-in- 
hand,” as only one Mrs. Ti shares with him the pro¬ 
fuse accommodations of the family vault, and she 
was certainly held in affectionate remembrance, wit¬ 
ness this touching inscription: “ To Nefer Hotep, be¬ 
loved of her husband, and the palm of amiability, 
etc., etc.” Two sons, Tamut, and a “ little Ti ” (pos¬ 
sibly a “half-hitch,” this junior) serve to garnish pa 
and ma in this splendid mausoleum, to the proper ex¬ 
amination of which many hours could well be de¬ 
voted; hours and a calcium light, as these poor tallow 
dips furnished by the Arabs are quite inadequate for 
the satisfactory study of their sculptured wonders. 

Once more we emerge into the brilliant daylight, - 
remount “Gingerbread” and “Yankee Doodle,” fall 
into the cavalcade of “ Cookies,” and followed by the 
yelling scamps who own and propel these “ Batteaux 
of the Desert,” we scamper back over our morning 
route, board the waiting boat, and reach the little dock 
below the great bridge, just as the glowing sun disc 
drops below the edge of Cheops and carves that 
wondrous outline on the blue-green, palm-fringed 
horizon. We land in the lovely twilight, and taking 
one of an army of waiting cabs, are speedily set down 
on the “Terrace” amid the extra “hurly-burly” of a 
“ Steamer train just in, sir! ” 

As E. has her interest in Egyptian antiquities under 
very perfect control, I have spent many hours solus, 
at the splendid Gizeh Museum, reached along a de¬ 
lightfully shaded road by a first-class Yankee trolley 
tram, in twenty minutes from the Nile bridge. This 
collection, of course the finest in existence, of the 


203 


Only Letters 

marvelous home products of ancient Egypt is housed 
in the preposterous palace of an extinct potentate, a 
certain Khedive Ismail. This man, at a claimed cost 
of one hundred and twenty millions of francs, erected 
a vast rambling building, containing more than five 
hundred rooms, salons, courts, etc., that as an expo¬ 
sition of the hideous possibilities of architectural dis¬ 
sipation, leaves nothing to be desired. Ismail seems 
to have been a notable collector of “female” “live 
stock,” with a practically insatiate penchant for ac¬ 
cumulating “mothers-in-law,” of which latter he is 
said to have had a wonderful gathering,—being an 
excessively married man. 

The palace, a mass of wooden “gingerbread,” is 
surrounded by a beautiful park, covering a lot of 
ground, and long before it was finished the builder, 
and not the “house,” was given a “warming” by 
his outraged, sorely taxed subjects, who were justifi¬ 
ably furious over the sight of so many of their hard 
earned piasters being transmuted into “matrimony.” 
In this building, some ninety rooms are used for the 
superb collections, and these are filled with the mar¬ 
velous gleanings of the Nile valley, that inexhaustible 
mine of the treasures of this cradle of a remote civi¬ 
lization, in which almost every art flourished. I will 
not risk “boring” you with any lengthy description 
of its manifold wonders, but cannot resist mention 
of a few things that deeply interested me. Of 
course, as the outcome of scientific spoliation, dis¬ 
criminating pillage and extensive purchasing, the 
Louvre and British Museum have the splendid collec¬ 
tions that you know, but in many directions Gizeh is 


204 


Only Letters 

unique, notably in papyri and scarabs, the latter rang¬ 
ing from those a quarter of an inch long to one in 
granite weighing a ton, but what most interested me 
were the royal mummies. After deviously wander¬ 
ing through hundreds of the gaudily painted and 
gilded cases of old " Inconnus ” (in old canoes), 
originally laid away with elaborate grief no doubt, 
but here piled in orderly but quite unemotional 
"tiers,” I entered an apartment evidently built for 
dances, quite other than that "of death,”—the 
Chamber of the Kings. I first looked upon Seti I of 
necessity, a pronounced brunette, but with features 
still sufficiently preserved to readily note the striking 
likeness to various portrait statues of him in this 
museum and elsewhere, and to see what manner of 
man had been he to whom a daughter doubtless re¬ 
ported the finding of a certain little Hebrew boy, a 
"flotsam” destined to play no trivial part on the 
Egyptian stage eighty years later. Beside him lay his 
son and successor, the Great Rameses II, with intel¬ 
lect still legibly written on every line of the shriveled 
face, and a look of determination well befitting the 
taskmaster who so intensified the bitterness of the 
bondage, under which Israel groaned, certainly in this 
valley, and possibly on the very site of this building. 
The Pharaoh of the Exodus, the man whose heart oft 
repeated plagues served but to harden yet the more, 
was Merenptah, who you may remember died sud¬ 
denly at sea, and consequently was unavoidably ab¬ 
sent from this wonderful gathering of dessicated 
potentates. 

In one of the glass-covered cases I saw, lying on 


205 


Only Letters 

the swathed body, a garland of flowers that had there 
lain three thousand years, with the lotus buds and 
blossoms easily distinguishable from the smaller 
daisy-like flowers, while leaves and stems, although 
bleached to a phantom whiteness, were perfect and 
seemingly uninjured. What an eloquent testimony 
this to the marvelous conservative capabilities of 
Egyptian tombs, and to the exquisite care and skill of 
the modern “Exploiters of those treasure houses." 
It is a remarkable and noteworthy fact, that while 
Egypt, in the remote past, was unquestionably very 
far advanced in every department of art achievement, 
her influence (if ever dominant) has practically van¬ 
ished without leaving any perceptible “footsteps in 
the artistic sands of time," so completely has our 
modern art-expression embraced those Greek ideals, 
which through centuries have made good their claim 
to universal empire in the realm of the arts decorative. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Cairo , February lyth, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

One afternoon we took another Amer¬ 
ican tram and (I blush to add) a bag of golf-sticks, 
and set out for the Pyramids, E. having been seized 
with a desire to play on the links belonging to the 
Mena House in case Cheops proved “tame.” The 
five intervening miles over an admirable road, shaded 
by fine Lebbic trees, were soon covered, and for the 




206 


Only Letters 

entire distance that astounding group of manufac¬ 
tured mountains was constantly in view, and waxing 
upon the eye and mind. I was quite prepared to re¬ 
peat the usual Niagara Falls experience and be disap¬ 
pointed in their first sight, but they, especially 
Cheops, far exceeded my most sanguine expectations. 
They certainly are stupendous. 

It did seem shocking to approach the Pyramids in 
a “trolley car,” a la Willow Grove, but we decided, 
distinctly less shocking at two piasters, than per 
hack, at forty, and we were consoled by the thought 
that many worse things had happened around these 
monuments, since their building, about 4000 b. c., 
—Cheops is, I think, the oldest building reared by 
human hands yet discovered. 

We first strolled down to the edge of the great pit, 
above the rim of which the mighty Sphinx rears its 
vast and sadly mutilated head, which all the pictures 
I have ever seen distinctly “flatter.” As a matter of 
most regrettable fact, the face is much “flatter” than 
I had expected it would be. It is simply stupendous 
in its pose and dignity, but the neck is sadly worn 
away by a gradual erosion, and the face fearfully 
wrecked; and that by other media than the all de¬ 
vouring tooth of time. Much of this facial disfigure¬ 
ment is of comparatively recent date, when a lot of 
fanatic Bedouins broke off the tip of the noble nose, 
hacked the ears and lips, and fired hundreds of shots 
at the full face with their muskets; the latter a form 
of cosmetic, a bit too strenuous for even such an in* 
durated countenance as this. 

Next, in a moment of unwise and speedily re- 


Only Letters 207 

pented of pliancy, I consented to join E. in making 
the circuit of Cheops, per camel. Never again will 
I, of my “ own motion ” be subjected to hisn, and I 
gladly “un-humped” myself feeling vastly like an 
“egg” that had just been “nogged.” The sensa¬ 
tion, I think might be fairly well repeated, by walk¬ 
ing up a flight of rickety steps on stilts of uneven 
lengths, while those steps swayed sideways. Verily 
the repertory of disagreeable sensations is an ample 
one, and there be exceeding many discordant “bars” 
in the “gait” of a camel. 

After looking at the Great Pyramid from all of its 
four sides, each a stretch of 750 feet, and of the im¬ 
aginative faculty, we decided to ascend the 568 feet 
that intervene between its lowest visible course and 
the towering, tapering summit, and quite “a* gitten 
up-stairs ” was to ensue, as I speedily discovered. 
Our party consisted of eight; three men for each of 
us, two Nubians, and two Bedouin Arabs who ac¬ 
tually worked, and yet other twain yellow men who 
carried unrequired water-bottles, and were promis¬ 
cuously unnecessary and superclamorous when the 
time for payment arrived. I need not repeat the long- 
worn, threadbare details of our being alternately 
shoved, boosted, and yanked up those huge irregular 
steps formed by the falling-off of an outer face of 
stone which made all of these pyramids when intact, 
a smooth tapering mountain. It never entered the 
head of its august and long deceased builder that man 
would one day climb over that head forty centuries 
after he had passed away. We reached the summit 
in about twenty-five minutes; I, in view of the recent 


208 


Only Letters 

camel seance, plus six miles of “Yankee Doodle 1 ' 
two days before, a trifle “stiff in the jints,” but we 
soon cooled off, resumed normal respiration, and 
after effectually quenching the pestilential brood of 
relic-peddlers who nest upon this classic eyrie, look 
abroad on a truly wondrous prospect,—a reward 
ample indeed for the toilsome cost of its attainment. 
To the east, the Nile valley, with the turgid brown 
waters of the great river transmuted by distance to a 
charming cobalt, the level plains upon its either mar¬ 
gin “all decked in living green” of an intensity pe¬ 
culiar to this valley. Beyond, a stretch of tawny des¬ 
ert, reaching back to the Libyan Hills, whose rugged 
faces are of varying hues of brown, red, yellow, and 
purple, of blue, gray, or ashen white, a fitting back¬ 
ground for the girdle of fertility that follows the 
river’s winding course,—a mere selvage of freshness 
and beauty on the robe of a boundless desolation. 

Cairo, in the hazy distance, shone in the sinking 
sun with its tall minarets, snowy mosque domes, and 
palm filled gardens; and even the white, squat and 
often squalid houses, borrowed “enchantment” from 
distance, and thereby gained vastly in the high rate of 
“interest” by such transaction. Near at hand, long 
lines of camels with drooping heads, mere creeping 
dots, with other “dotlets” for donkeys and men, 
crawl slowly along the brown tapes to which the 
roads across the fields are shrunken. Over by the 
Mena House “forty centuries,” and we look down 
upon a few white Frankish atoms, strolling over cer¬ 
tain “links” that bind the gigantic past to a trivial 
present, pursuing the “royal game "that so con- 


209 


Only Letters 

stantly jeopardizes section three of the Decalogue. 
To the west, the sun in a filmy mist-cloud shone on 
the boundless unbroken monotony of the Nubian des¬ 
ert, with a curious greenish copper radiance, and the 
entire horizon was of a glowing purple, as we started 
on the worst group of twelve Egyptian minutes, I 
can now recall, with its reiterated succession of deca¬ 
dent jumps and bone-shaking drops from strata to 
strata that rendered “terra,” by no means “firma,” 
when first my returning feet wooed its stability. 

When about halfway down, I noticed a gradual 
congestion of white turbans around the spot where 
we are to alight, and I knew full well that “ Ethiopia 
shall soon stretch out her hands,” but alas! to mam¬ 
mon! and that we are anon to bleed piasters up to 
the limit I had set. Then followed a sharp burst of 
about three squares to catch the trolley which runs 
but once each hour, and which we were within forty 
minutes of missing when we arrived at top speed in 
response to its quite “ too-previous ” warning bell. 

As we swung around the last curve, I shall not 
soon forget those three great ashen peaks against the 
greenish pallor of the dying day that met my back¬ 
ward glance. 

A day or two since on one of my trips down to 
the Museum, the car was blocked in the centre of the 
Nile bridge which commands an unbroken view up 
and down the stream. An Englishman turned to me 
and said, “Have you ever been on Battersea Bridge 
in London, sir?” When I told him I never had, he 
rejoined with, “Well, do you know this view quite 
reminds me of it! ” The view in question was a long 


210 


Only Letters 

stretch of bare mud banks, dotted here and there 
with frowsy palms, a fleet of native boats prone on 
their sides with their long lateen yards pointing every 
which way, and a few white turbaned, half-naked 
blacks moving among them, and over all, the ever 
wheeling vultures,—and this reminded him of the 
Thames in Londontown,—Ye mingled shades of Isis 
and of Thamis! I looked him over for an instant, 
and then asked, “ Have you been out to the Pyramids 
yet ?” “ No, I’ve not; I’m quite planning to go this 

very afternoon,” quoth he. “When you do go,” 
said I, “you cannot fail to be struck by the remark¬ 
ably strong resemblance of Cheops to the Dome of 
St. Paul’s.” “Do you tell me that? Well! well! 
that’s truly remarkable, indeed ! ” Whereupon a 
young couple of our countrymen on the other side of 
the car looked away from us, and burst into incon¬ 
tinent laughter over something. My friend got off at 
the bridge-end, and was seen of me no more. 

These glorious days of cloudless pearl, and of sap¬ 
phire, pass all too quickly, and on the 15th we reluc¬ 
tantly left for Port Said, passing the Grosser Kur- 
fnrst in the canal, plowing wide paths in the Styg¬ 
ian darkness with her enormous search-light, and 
favoring us with a scream of recognition from her steam 
syren. After a so-called dinner at a hotel, poor but pre¬ 
tentious, and a “ bad half hour ” with a horde of Arab 
porters, we got aboard about ten, and were given 
the most luxurious staterooms that ever fell to my 
lot; and then settled ourselves to watch and listen to 
pandemonium as rendered by 400 blacks, while put¬ 
ting aboard of us, 1,800 tons of coal in preposterously 


21 I 


Only Letters 

small baskets. It was broad daylight before the 
huge barges loaded with weary coal-black, and coal- 
blackened blacks, were towed ashore, and the wash¬ 
ing down of the filthy decks began. We got under 
way by nine, and after a proper breakfast made a 
tour of inspection, but soon reached the conclusion 
that books must suffice for company on the short run 
ahead of us. The weather is delightful, and this 
great hull seems so super-steady after the frantic, 
dolphin-esque little Isis; and she is doing well des¬ 
pite head-winds that may prevent our seeing Naples 
on time—small matter that, to us at least, who are 
not “ pressed ” for it. 

Lunch now—“ see you later in Naples! ” 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Naples , February 19th, 1901 . 

My dear M-: 

It was late in the afternoon of one of 
those glorious Italian winter days that we steamed 
into that bay of bays, with its shores and islands 
partly veiled by a translucent mist that mellowed 
without obscuring their looming loveliness. We 
passed close under Capri, all that my fancy had 
painted it, with distant Ischia melting into a rapidly 
deeping, roseate purple, that now claimed the 
gleaming West, and on our right the vast, usually 
bare, but now snow-covered cone, breathing forth a 
tiny smoke cloud that trailed off southward and was 




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quickly lost in the deepening twilight. What an in¬ 
citement is this bay to the marshaling of rhapsodies, 
and how exceeding many have set such hyperbolic 
“squadrons in the field,” in prose and verse, in 
rhyme, “rot” and rubbish. 

We are lodged at the Vesuve, with rooms on its 
fourth floor facing directly on the glorious bay, and 
as I lie abed 1 can, through the open casement, watch 
the waxing and waning of the pink glow upon the 
fleecy smoke cloud directly above the crater of 
Vesuvius, now as already mentioned, covered with 
patches of unwonted snow; or turn me about, and 
gaze upon the shadowy but charming outlines of 
distant Capri in the offing. There is one of those 
preposterous “automatic” elevators here, of the sort 
that calls a halt in its own palsied progress at each 
floor. The shaft in which it runs (“ runs” by cour¬ 
tesy) is decorated in the prevailing Pompeian style, 
each floor being marked by a female figure com¬ 
mencing at No. i, with an eminently sober lady in a 
long robe walking demurely in space. Floor second 
is a bit more frivolous, younger lady, dressed for 
warmer weather, skipping over garlands—should 
have a chaperon. Floor third; the “plot thickens,” 
ditto girl (a stout one), she a floating instance of mis¬ 
placed confidence in the actual screening powers of a 
distinctly filmy scarf. Artist should have painted an 
aunt or elder sister within calling distance. Fourth 
floor; ours! large white bit of female buoyancy sub¬ 
merged in animal spirits, hair very neatly done, all 
other toilet details quite overlooked, lady in the 
“ ante-fall-apple ” style of the original “ first family.” 


213 


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There is also a filth floor that I have never scaled, but 
if this scheme of decoration does not waver in its 
hitherto consistent and persistent progression, an 
allegorical “autopsy” must be the symbol “cinque.” 

’Tis unusually cold, uncomfortably so, both indoors 
and out, resulting from snow on the mountains all 
around us, and this unwonted chill has fairly routed 
the hordes of beggars that are ever such a Neapolitan 
nuisance. Thanks to this “winter of their discon¬ 
tent” when they are “benumbed” they can be- 
numbered! 

The list of purely local sights is but a brief one, 
the museum being the chief attraction with its superb 
collections, unfortunately for us, now in a state of 
partial eclipse owing to extensive rearrangements. 
However, the Pompeian section, the bronzes and the 
glorious sculptures were accessible to us, including 
my especial delight, indeed my freely confessed love, 
the Psyche, which even in her sadly rent state is a 
transcendent marvel of loveliness. Only fancy what 
she must have been when that shapely head was 
intact! 

We left Naples one morning at 8:30, and went by 
rail to Paestum, some twenty miles, to visit the three 
finest Greek temples now standing outside of Greece 
herself. They were, indeed, beautiful examples, and 
considering their age, 600 b. c., in a very good state 
of preservation, although built of tufa, the soft 
porous stone so universally used all over this part of 
Italy for buildings of all sorts. 

Of it they are building a large hotel near us in 
Naples and are cutting the blocks to the desired forms 


214 


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and dimensions with saws and hatchets. It is nearly 
as soft as adolescent cheese when first quarried, but 
soon grows “stronger" with age and exposure, 
stronger even than the most potent “ Limburger.” 
In the rows of noble fluted columns, possibly five 
feet in diameter, were some with holes gnawed in 
them by time and exposure, into which one might 
almost thrust his head. So much for tufa and the 
climate of Italy as compared with granite, limestone 
and Egypt, and the preservation for 5,000 years of 
the most delicate sculptures, as free from blemish as 
when wrought. Even among these classic shades and 
in such an ennobling environment, we note the sel¬ 
dom absent “trail ” of the tourist, in the chipped egg¬ 
shells, the torn-up letter, the little heap of abandoned 
salt, and the vagrant greasy paper bag with which 
“culture” nomadic, rather than sporadic indecorously 
decorates the noblest shrines of its visitations. Such 
“heave offerings ” of abandoned garbage are certainly 
not an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of eternal 
fitness. 

Leaving Psestum after a lunch sans survivals, and a 
delightful sojourn in the temple of Neptune, whence 
we gazed on his accredited realm in the blue, white- 
capped waves that danced before our eyes, through 
the stately colonnade of his long discredited fane, we 
ran back to Salerno, a small town on a gulf of that 
name, and took a shabby but comfortable little open 
carriage with a brisk team and a driver who was alto¬ 
gether a type of his race and calling. He was the 
very soul of amiability and fairly bristling with local 
information which he strove to impart to us from the 


215 


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box, sending back smiles, Anglo-ltalian data, and 
raptures so freighted with garlic as to render those 
courtesies fairly corrosive in their virgin pungency. 
For nearly three hours we follow the wonderful coast 
line, on a splendid road carried on lofty stone arches, 
or quarried from the face of the cliffs and varying 
from one hundred to five hundred feet above the 
level of the shining sea. Following as it does the 
sinuous coast line, the road furnishes a constantly 
changing panorama past description lovely on either 
hand. To the left, we look off over that shimmering 
summer sea dotted with the tawny sails of the crank 
little craft that represents the Fishing fleets of these 
waters. At our feet, but far below, every shade of 
blue, green and purple was presented by the varying 
depths, a constantly recurring effect being patches of 
an intense turquoise on a ground of dull purple, 
where little spots of white sand occurred on the bot¬ 
tom of the shallow sea. The coast is bold, and the 
shore in many places strewn with huge fallen rocks, 
and against these the breakers dash with a faint roar 
that sometimes floated up to our lofty ledge and a 
line of swift receding, snowy foam, marks the limit 
of the tidal inroad; it was indeed beautiful quite be¬ 
yond my powers to chronicle. Great fissures in the 
cliffs ran back into the land, sometimes with a little 
strip of sand-beach and a few tiny huts clustering 
like swallows’ nests against the rocks, and with a 
narrow, grass-fringed thread of a path to give these 
“ shut-ins ” access to the upper and outer world. On 
many of the headlands were the ruins of massive 
watch-towers built in past ages before “pirates” 


2l6 


Only Letters 

kept hotels unmolested, and when they actually 
“followed the sea" and took their “tourist" afloat, 
and as it were, on the “half-shell." From these 
towers warnings were given of the impending visi¬ 
tations of these sea rovers, so that the alternatives of 
flight or fight could be arranged for. On the land 
side great overhanging cliffs pierced with caverns and 
grottoes alternate with valleys which from base to 
often lofty summits, are unbroken flights of gigantic 
steps or terraces built of solid masonry, and varying 
in width from a few feet at the summit to whatever 
width the valley could furnish for the lowest one. 
These giant steps often towering above us against 
the blue sky line, are all planted thickly with lemon- 
trees, each terrace being covered with arbors on 
which the trees are trained flat, and then the entire 
series of arbors is thickly covered with the boughs of 
trees to screen the fruit from cold winds and possible 
frosts. 

Every scrap of seemingly barren rock has been re¬ 
deemed by the mason, and turned over to the fruit 
grower. The “trowel" is truly “trumps" here, 
and the spade and hoe but “side cards" in the game 
of “lemons." After the mason has finished his re¬ 
taining walls, earth is brought (often in small bas¬ 
kets), and the slice of orchard becomes an accom¬ 
plished fact. Sometimes these artificial terraces rise 
one above the other to the number of thirty or forty, 
and we rode for miles under these, covered with 
millions of ripe and ripening lemons looking like 
strings of golden beads under the deep green, glossy 
foliage. No oranges here, as found further up the 


217 


Only Letters 

coast, but lemons and lemons only, here at least the 
“citron” is king. Along the roadside and from 
what seemed solid rock (of course it was “ seamed ” ), 
spring enormous aloes, precisely such as we tenderly 
nurse in tubs. How their huge roots find nourish¬ 
ment was a source of wonder, and indeed, the same 
might be said of the giant cacti that luxuriate in the 
like arduous environment. 

On the perfectly “groomed,” smooth, stoneless 
road, we continuously trace the coast line, now aloft, 
now quite near the sea, or dash through little villages 
of a single street, and a score of beggars, of whom 
the least deserving, if there be any choice, follow our 
trap as long as their breath holds out to whine for 
non-forthcoming alms. 

As the sun was dropping into that glorious purple 
and golden sea, we whirl around a lofty headland, 
and with the usual salvo of whip-cracking from 
Guiseppe-delle Garlic, dash into the little white town 
of Amalfi. 

As this letter has already exceeded normal limits, 
pray consider that “ dash ” as an hyphenated con¬ 
tinuity until I write next. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Naples, February 19th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

I finished my last letter “en-dash” 
into white Amalfi, a little sea-gull of a town resting 
on a mere ledge of rocks. We clatter through its 




2l8 


Only Letters 

rock-paved street, past the little market-square bright 
with gleaming fish, with fruit and flowers, and the 
gaudy kerchiefs of the gaily-dressed peasant women 
and girls, bolt through a long tunnel filled with 
thunderous echoes and finally draw up “ under ” (I 
use the term advisedly), the most remarkable hostelry 
that ever mine eye did see. The Grand Hotel of the 
Capuchins is built directly against the face of an 
overhanging cliff and in the face of an ever-impend¬ 
ing peril on a mere shelf of rock two hundred and 
thirty feet directly above us. After a long climb up a 
series of inclined planes, and easy, but easily too 
numerous steps, and after many halts superinduced 
by bits of beauty and bated breath, we finally reach 
the goal of our'endeavors, the entrance to the nar¬ 
row slice of hospitable architecture, a one-time Capu¬ 
chin Monastery, but for many years one of the most 
famous resorts in Europe, and that by right of “ im¬ 
minent domain." We were most courteously re¬ 
ceived by his “suavity," mine host, and shown to 
tiny boxes of rooms facing directly on the sky above, 
the shining sea so far below, each with its little 
glass-enclosed “lollery," extending out beyond the 
room proper, as in the days when these were but 
monkish cells, wherein when on meditation bent, 
there was naught save the open sea to distract the 
recluse. From these little glass boxes, our view of 
the wide expanse of open sea, of the little white 
town nestling at our very feet, of the purple waters 
breaking into successive selvages of snowy spume as 
they sweep up the rock-strewn strip of beach, of the 
fishing-boats in the offing sharply defined against the 


219 


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evening sky, was simply ravishing. This was the 
prospect in front, while on either side great cliffs are 
towering high above us with lemon terraces, tall 
poplars and clumps of ilex, cypresses, and bay-trees 
with gardens and tiny vineyards occupying every 
available space, and over all the warm soft radiance 
of an Italian sunset, 'twas indeed a duality of pictures 
with an infinity of delightful impressions. 

Now we descend to mundane conditions in response 
to a gong that bade us to the old refectory, whence 
monkish fare had long since departed, and where we 
did ample justice to an admirable dinner, after which 
we spent a couple of hours with a lot of pleasant 
wayfarers gathered around a blazing fire of actual 
logs, and then anon, to our cells, where lulled by the 
murmurs of the waves below, we soon are outbound 
on the tides of sleep. You may remember the land¬ 
slide here about a year ago, when an enormous slice 
of the cliff directly behind the house fell and carried 
down with it a considerable portion of the building, 
wrecking several other houses on its way to the sea. 
So directly under these overhanging cliffs of the 
rotten tufa stone is this unique building, that it seems 
as if its total annihilation might occur at any moment, 
but it has escaped for centuries, and may for yet 
others enjoy this, the most surpassingly exquisite 
hotel site I have ever seen. Running along the sheer 
face of the cliff the hotel property is but a mere slice 
of tenability, a narrow shred of suspended delecta¬ 
tion dangling as it were in mid air. Accessible from 
the little paved court at the hotel door is a charming 
and most romantic garden with three terraces ap- 


220 


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proached by flights of stone steps, the upper one de¬ 
voted to orange and other fruit trees, the second one 
to a vegetable garden planted and kept, after the 
manner of these horticultural artists, while the lower 
and widest of the three is a broad walk and flower 
garden. The massive stone columns of the famous 
Pergola follow the gently curving contour of the cliff 
supporting an arbor with a tangle of great vines, 
while the long low wall which forms a parapet on 
the seaside is lined with a wonderful collection of 
potted plants so disposed as to carry out a scheme of 
romantic beauty, lacking a single discordant note. 
This lovely walk, I should say two hundred feet long, 
terminates in a tiny rose garden raised slightly above 
the main terrace, wherein is a small arbor with its 
mat of vines, where one may sit and either simulate 
reading, or scorning such palpable pretense, may bid 
his raptured eyes to feast upon a prospect altogether 
past adequate picturing of mine. The glorious web 
here wrought out in the lovely prospect by sea and 
land, and by the time-mellowed, artistic details of 
this ancient Capuchin pleasaunce, I may not rend, 
but will leave it intact upon the loom that weaves 
such pictures for your one day seeing. All along the 
coast I notice venerable convents and monasteries 
perched on the summits of the loftiest cliffs where 
inaccessibility must have at one time guaranteed the 
presumably coveted isolation from the “madding 
crowd.” 

Next morning at ten, appears Guiseppe on the road 
below with his winning smile and alas with renewed 
evidences of his pungent gastronomic predilections, 


221 


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he certainly must have broken his fast with garlic 
and then have quenched his resultant thirst with 
naptha, and all that day he verily spake not save 
with “ bated breath." 

Descending to our comfortable little ‘ ‘ trap ” through 
the usual garniture of waiting beggars, we set our 
faces to Sorrento, famous as you will doubtless re¬ 
member, for “Agnes,” oranges, raptures, trashy 
woodwork, and “Marion Crawford," distant three 
hours, a continuation of the delights of yesterday, 
halting for lunch at a tiny inn where an elderly Eng¬ 
lish couple, the man a self-evident invalid, contributed 
much to our creature comforts by their conversance 
with the larder's possibilities and command of Italian. 
As we approach Sorrento the lemon abdicates, and 
over the high stone walls great orange-trees, laden 
with fruit to the breaking point, replace them, while 
the ground in some of these orchards seemed fairly 
paved with the golden globes. We reached Sorrento 
in time for tea in one of the gardens that line the 
cliff, and then take the boat which touches here on 
its way back to Naples from Capri. 

This glorious bay of Naples is chiefly responsible 
for the charming “make-up” of the face of nature. 
From its surface of incessantly changing hues, mists 
are ever arising that bathe the shores and islands, so 
that they are ever fresh and delightful and it is to be 
regretted that anything like adequate ablutions in this 
section are strictly confined to inanimate nature. 
With man, here, where “every prospect pleases,” 
“bathos,” quite supplants the “bath” and hydra¬ 
headed hyperbole utterly routs the trite but timely 


222 


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hydrant. The lower class Neapolitan is consistently 
and homogeneously dirty and your very superficial 
“ canvass ” of any of the side streets will speedily set 
the stamp of verity upon Murillo’s. The gifted 
“Esteben,” when he depicts, as is his questionable 
wont, the “pleasures of the chase" in the home 
circle, never “ draws ” upon his imagination, marry 
not he! 

It is positively heart-rending to see how cruelly 
the horse is abused all over Italy, preeminently so 
here, but nothing may be done by the stranger, as 
your Neapolitan is exceeding free with the stiletto, 
and any interference or remonstrance may instantly 
result in another phase of “ heart-rending,” so one 
must see to it that his “blood-boilings” boil not 
over. 

Of course, we had a day at Capri (would it had 
been five), going out in the regular morning boat 
with the usual lot of “Cookies” including a brace of 
most remunerative “brides.” First to the famous 
blue grotto as per schedule. There was a decidedly 
brisk breeze “doing” and the appropriate “choppy 
sea” on, as we dropped over the side into the danc¬ 
ing little, crank, cockle-shell boats in which the cav¬ 
ern must be entered, and forthwith those neatly 
“outfitted" brides, were speedily divorced from 
perfect bliss by plainly noticeable intervals. I saw 
them emerge from the cavern, still loving, but 
exceeding limp and evidently the prey of personal 
cavernous disturbances well calculated to cast a 
cerulean-ness over the “living present.” E. and I 
prospered, bar a slight error in regarding our 


223 


Only Letters 

boat, as quite full when the brawny oarsman and 
our two sizable selves were fairly wedged into its 
contracted space, alas! I soon found room behind me 
for a playful little two gallon wavelet that skipped in 
aft and forced his unwelcome presence upon me, 
speedily converting me to a continuous verticality 
with a yearning for retrospective sunshine when we 
landed. As to the grotto, all has been said of it 
years ago that may, can, must, might, could, would 
or should be said, so let it go at wonderful, but they 
whisk you out of it by the time your eyes have just 
begun to appreciate its remarkable effects,—drat ’em! 

All that ever I read (not a little) of Capri was more 
than realized in our drive to its several sights. It 
was simply raptures, gules rampant, on a field de¬ 
lectable, vert, crest a mountain-top, azure, support¬ 
ers, two tourists, ecstatic, etc. 

We passed a peasant wedding party filing along a 
narrow little street to the church, and kissed our 
hands to the smart young peasant beauty and the 
manly young groom who smiled and bowed as we 
drove by them. 

After a lunch partaken of underneath the sign 
“Our Oysters do not come from Naples,” we wan¬ 
dered over this veritable fairy-land until it was time 
to take the boat and accompany our rehabilitated 
“brides ” et al., back to Naples, and so ended a day 
deep freighted with delights. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


224 


Only Letters 


Rome , March iyth , /po/. 

My dear M-: 

As I recall it, my last letter closed with 
our return from Capri after a glorious day spent on 
that enchanting isle. E. having been there before, 
and as elsewhere noted, caring but little for such 
sights, did not accompany me to Pompeii where I 
spent a highly mechanical morning that did not 
measure up to my expectations of interest. Possibly 
this lack of enthusiasm may have been the progeny 
of at least a theoretical “familiarity” with a spot, 
concerning which reams have been written in the 
past. Of course, I was glad to see what certainly is 
a unique bit of excavating, and the various “finds” 
in the museum, but the whole place was too deliber¬ 
ately and persistently a mere exhibition and fee 
gleaner to excite a really robust enthusiasm in my 
breast. 

E. and I parted at Naples, she taking the Alter for 
Genoa whence she joins the others in the Riviera, and 
as soon as her ship was ‘ ‘ hull-down ” on the horizon, 

I packed my trunk and turned my eager face to the 
Eternal City where 1 have now been almost two 
weeks. I scarce know where to commence to chron¬ 
icle my impressions of this wonderful city, but I may 
at least state at the outset, that the disappointment 
that awaited me (vide, divers had been here before 
me), did not materialize, and I am positively thrilled 
with Rome. I arrived after nightfall and a pain¬ 
fully uncomfortable ride up from Naples, as the 
most unwilling “ meat ” of an animate sandwich, the 



225 


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“ bread M of which enforced coalition, being two fat 
priests on the one hand, and on the other, two 
equally adipose infantry officers. The train was 
crammed with people five to each seat, and being as 
I was, the centre of such an eclipsing quintette, I 
scarcely so much as caught a glimpse of the scenery 
en route, but missed no single whiff of sacerdotal 
garlic, or of those horrible native cigars that look so 
like a rat's tail and that emit an odor when burning, 
which greatly heightens their rodentine semblance. 
The men who smoke these pestilential weeds simu¬ 
late enjoyment to perfection,—for the higher branches 
of applied dissimulation, commend me to an Italian. 

I am lodged at the “ de Russie" which nestles di¬ 
rectly under the brow of the Pincian Hill, and have a 
room on its fourth floor looking out upon a large and 
charming garden, wherein are all manner of those ex¬ 
quisite touches that these gardeners, peerless for cen¬ 
turies, so well understand, and wherein a perfect har¬ 
mony between art and nature is so delightfully ex¬ 
emplified. 

As soon as 1 was settled, I called upon our very 
good friends the F.’s, whose presence here holds out 
the sure promise of a vast augmenting of my pleas¬ 
ures, as they happily combine in themselves the po¬ 
tential attractions of illimitable kindness, an intimate 
acquaintance with Rome where they have spent 
several winters, and a boundless capacity for keenly 
appreciative sight-seeing, this latter gift, one of 
superlative value by reason of its rarity. The F.’s un¬ 
erringly know a good thing when they see it, and see 
it they unfailingly do. 


226 


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To see Rome, really see it, means many months, 
and of a small popular handbook, entitled “ Rome in 
one week ” any one can appreciate the latter half of 
its caption and fully sympathize with the “one 
weak,” after such a hopeless seven day struggle. 
Of course, I went first to St. Peter’s and was fully 
conscious of feeling precisely as have millions be¬ 
fore me when they for the first time gazed upon its 
absolute overwhelmingness. I took but a super¬ 
ficial stroll down its vast nave, turned into one tran¬ 
sept and then after the hour so spent, left to brood 
over my impressions. I have fallen into the habit 
of going to the Sixtine Chapel almost every morn¬ 
ing about ten, when the light is at its best, on the 
greatest painting I ever saw, that amazing ceiling, 
and after an hour there, usually pay a short visit to 
St. Peter’s and then to some one of the Vatican col¬ 
lections, where I never weary of wandering leisurely 
through those peerless galleries of statuary. That 
“never wearying,” of course, applies but to the 
mental man of me, as I constantly go home footsore 
and fairly beaten out with a fatigue that lays under 
tribute body, soul and spirit. The more I study the 
Sixtine ceiling the more powerfully its marvels appeal 
to me and the better I am able to appreciate the 
almost art omniscience of its great creator. Such 
groupings, such architectural details, such a balance 
and blending of often discordant elements, and such 
a supreme mastery of drawing, perspective and color, 
were never before, since time was I verily believe. I 
thus have spent many delight-filled Sixtine hours, 
either a la “Little Johnnie head in Air” or in mercy 


Only Letters 227 

to my cervical vertebra, with a mirror on my lap, 
going over that marvelous limning, bit by bit. 

For the Last Judgment, however, I have an alto¬ 
gether different set of emotions including one of 
hearty regret that by order of Pope Paul III Michael 
Angelo painted it over one of Perugino's greatest 
works, a superb altar piece. Of course I know it to 
be wonderful, without turning to “St. Karl of Leip- 
sic” to be quite certain of an uninfluenced approval, 
but with the darkening and obscuration that has over¬ 
taken it of late years ; it appeals to me chiefly as a 
marvelously coherent mass of muscular unpleasant¬ 
ness; in short I regard it as the Hindoo does his God, 
i. e., as knowing it to be ugly, but believing it to be 
great. Apart from the supreme attractions of the 
sculptures, I find the other Vatican collections of but 
moderate interest. Raphael’s Frescoes and the 
Tapestries, are unquestionably great works of art, but 
there are other masters who appeal to me much more 
strongly than does anything of his I ever saw, and I 
think I have seen most of his masterpieces. 

The Vatican library, despite its actually vast accum¬ 
ulation of literary treasures, as mechanically shown 
to the herds of “rounded up” tourists, lacks the 
faintest suspicion of the presence of books or manu¬ 
scripts and the far from thrilling interest centres in 
the usually huge, and often ugly vases, of Papal pre¬ 
sentations, standing on tawdry tables. Among these, 
I noticed several Malachite vases, that point unerr¬ 
ingly to some former Pope’s having incurred the good 
will of some previous Tsar. Despite the interesting 
decorations of the fine room shown, I regard a visit 


228 


Only Letters 

to this library, on the gregarious plan demanded, as 
the simple wreck of one silver lira and thirty golden 
minutes. 

Apropos of pictures; I went a day or two since to 
see the famous Aurora of Guido Reni on the ceiling 
of the little Casino attached to one of the old palaces. 
It quite exceeded my very sanguine anticipations and 
is indeed a noble work, charming alike in composi¬ 
tion, color and drawing. Of course it is incessantly 
copied and there are always a dozen or so of these 
copies awaiting visitors who patronize art in modera¬ 
tion. It is highly entertaining to watch the transfer 
of one of these surprising and quite inexpensive 
“gems,” say one of the very worst of many exceed¬ 
ing bad,—such a picture as this for instance. As if 
in response to an advertisement from the “ Herald of 
the morning,” a festoon of excessively buxom cooks 
and unduly sturdy chambermaids are floundering 
barefooted and hand in hand over hillocks of rainbow 
tinted lather, in frantic efforts to overtake the most 
disreputable looking driver of a conveyance drawn 
by two lavishly variegated steeds, while as for the 
winged lump of indefinite pinkness hovering over¬ 
head, there was not so much as a tinge of “cupid¬ 
ity” in his chestnut-worm contour. This was a 
“Phoebus” surrounded by the “hours,” “after 
Guido, (who ran small risk of being overtaken,”) and it 
only cost its obviously proud possessor about $12.50, 
including frame. 

Long foreign purses versus short Roman ones, are 
chargeable with the comparative scarcity of great 
pictures in Rome outside of the Vatican collection 


Only Letters 229 

with its limited number of world famous master¬ 
pieces. 

Many of these impoverished nobles have been 
forced to make “ducks and drakes” of their “can¬ 
vas backs,” and after the manner of Esau to sell their 
artistic birthrights for a mess of foreign pottage, even 
a “Titian” with want in “competition” can have 
but one ending. Of late years the government has 
forbidden the sale of these masterpieces, so their 
owners must keep them, and doubtless sometimes 
suffer for their enforced retention. 

In the villa Borghesi are a few famous works in¬ 
cluding Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love,” for 
which rumor says the prince was offered a “cool” 
(but alas, as his king had decreed, not cool enough to 
handle), million dollars. 

In the Doria palace is a magnificent Innocent X, by 
Velasquez, and scattered through various other galler¬ 
ies an occasional fine work is encountered, but medi¬ 
ocrity seems to be the rule and exceeding many 
square yards of very mild art may be “done” com¬ 
fortably in an hour by any fair pedestrian. I was 
much amused in the Doria gallery by the easily audi¬ 
ble raptures of a pseudo-cultured mother in pointing 
out to her pretty daughter the incomparable beauties 
of an unusually large and exquisite Claude Lorraine. 
Unfortunately, the two guileless ladies were subject¬ 
ing No. 58 to an appreciative autopsy and had about 
reached the “lees” of their meed of praise when the 
daughter exclaimed, “Why, ma ! that’s not a 
‘Claude,’ the Claude is No. 68,” which was sooth 
and which served to show how very much more re- 


230 


Only Letters 

liable a dip into Baedeker is than the average mal 
when a “candle" is demanded for the “game" of 
artistic appreciation. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Rome, March 20th , 1901. 

My dear M-: 

This is indeed a city of incessant won¬ 
ders, of constant and unlooked for surprises, and as 
one walks its streets delightful “bits" peep out from 
narrow courts, or as part and parcel of some sordid 
shop or trite tenement; “ Imperious Csesar" herein 
his own capitol seems ever cast in the role of “ar¬ 
gillaceous" stop-gap. Walls and doorways con¬ 
stantly have imbedded in their modern plaster, scraps 
of charming sculptures, and shreds of an extinct 
glory. Out on the Campagna where I often drive 
after lunch to revel in the many “ fuori-mura " sights, 
nothing is more common than to see rare bits of 
Carara and other marbles built into poor houses and 
stables. Here a forearm, yonder a mutilated hand, 
or a few toes with a bit of the sandal-strap between 
them, fragmentary reeds rent from some erstwhile 
glorious shaft, scraps of an exquisite frieze, or per¬ 
chance, the superfine nose of a Greek Juno, thrust out 
from some poor peasant’s stable-wall where the 
odors savor not of “ High Olympus.” 

I find my way back day after day to the sculptures 
of the Vatican, the Lateral! Museum, or some one of 




231 


Only Letters 

the many collections, and with each recurring visit re¬ 
new my first delight. I noticed one rather droll 
custom here, that of placing the head of one statue 
on the trunk of another and palpably misfit necks 
and general cervical troubles are constantly seen. 1 
fancy the actual identity of many of these stony 
brethren is largely a matter of guesswork; indeed, 
not a few busts in the famous Capitoline collection 
are known to be incorrectly labeled (many a man’s 
title being a “ mis-nomer ” ?) and he consequently, 
quite able, if necessary, to prove either an alias or 
alibi. When we remember the tens of thousands of 
these long extinct Romans who sought immortality 
in the marble-yard it is small wonder that such long 
deferred resurrections should result in the occasional 
“losing of heads” and mislaying of “trunks” after 
the manner of the tourist of to-day. 

Among the busts in that same Capitoline assembly 
is one of Julia-Pia, wife of Septimius Severus with a 
removable wig of marble, and rumor hath it that this 
lady had a number of sets of differently arranged 
tresses, that would fit the same stone cranium, could 
the force of vanity further go than this ? 

1 am “doing” the Forum by easy stages and with 
an ardor quite undampened by a hardened traveler, 
an old lady who faces me at table d’hote and who 
constantly bewails its utter destruction in these “lat¬ 
ter days.” To hear her “ reminiss,” one might almost 
suppose that she had been especially invited on 
“varnishing-day” prior to its first opening to the 
general public. There is, however, no overlooking 
the fact that the excavator in Rome is now simply 


232 


Only Letters 

running amuck at these glorious ruins. The manner 
in which the whole surface of the Forum has been 
fairly rooted up, reminds one of the “ sound sense ” 
of the little boy who tore out the head of his drum 
to see where the “noise” came from. All over the 
floor of these historic acres are now huge piles of 
scrap marble, hundreds of tons of stuff fit only for 
the lime kiln that in earlier times was fed on en¬ 
tire statues at the behest of vandal Popes and sordid 
builders. In the hope of finding something new and 
of but presumptive interest, they seem content to 
jeopardize what there is of existing beauty that has 
so far survived the intermittent spoliations of past 
ages. 

I usually go to the Forum in the morning, and lin¬ 
gering behind the clusters of “ Cookies,” select some 
convenient perch on a block of stone, spread out my 
most lucid and comprehensive map and trace the 
various ruins, and while so absorbed hours slip by 
unnoted, until 1 feel the slight chill that tells of the 
sun’s retreat behind some range of buildings. It is, 

I believe, for most visitors, an entirely natural and 
spontaneous experience, to be deeply impressed with 
the vast aggregation of interest that centres in this 
small plot, so thickly strewn with the meagre sur¬ 
vivals of a glorious past. To saunter along the Via 
Sacra where beyond all question the “ noblest Roman 
of them all ” was wont to walk, and where those 
splendid triumphal processions marched, is really 
treading in the path of Empire, so instantly present 
are the associations that are bound up in this small 
arena. 


233 


Only Letters 

Some days I climb to the top of those marvelous 
strata of submerged splendors that from the Pala¬ 
tine Hill look down upon the Forum. There, under 
a spreading tree, I love to sit and look down into the 
easily covered expanse, and study from that coign of 
vantage its many fragments, and then to look off be¬ 
yond the Arch of Titus, to the Colosseum with the 
many scars on its venerable walls healed by a gracious 
distance. There too the ruthless excavator has 
ploughed up almost its entire area, exposing to view 
a vast network of unsightly channels and sewer-like 
passageways, peradventure in the interest of Ar¬ 
chaeological lore, but certes vastly disquieting to those 
who wish to foster the reminiscent, and to find even 
“standing room only” for the “dying gladiator" 
and the martyr-sated beasts. A few nights since, I 
went with the F.’s to see the Colosseum illuminated 
with colored fires, a thoroughly disappointing expe¬ 
rience, as the effect had such a strong flavor of “ great¬ 
est show on earth.” It seemed to belittle such a 
noble and historic pile to treat it like the “ home-com¬ 
ing” of some successful ward-politician; however, 
when exclusively white lights replace the red and 
green ones, a very satisfactory and comprehensive 
view of the vast and complicated interior was had 
that quite compensated for the previous colored in¬ 
felicity. 

I had a somewhat unusual bit of good fortune one 
day last week in gaining admission to the Pope’s 
private garden and grounds, a thing as I later learned 
difficult to accomplish of late years. I was about 
to enter the rotunda leading to the sculpture galleries 


234 


Only Letters 

when I noticed three priests parleying with the porter 
at the garden gate, directly opposite. Forthwith I 
crossed over to see “ what was doing ” and arrived 
just in time to see them admitted and to have 
the gate promptly shut in my face, sans cere¬ 
mony. Of course, I made it quite clear to the man 
that I also “ wanted in ” and in so doing I suspect as¬ 
sumed a distinctly “franc” expression to which he 
responded with the local leer that ever means “ lira.” 
The man looked about him for a moment with a fair 
imitation of concern, and then seeing no one near by, 
opened the gate a trifle and I slid in. I wandered 
for more than an hour through these really extensive 
grounds, of I should think, perhaps Fifty acres, with 
hills and valleys, beautiful shrubbery, groves of 
ancient trees beneath which the ground was covered 
with violets and anemones. Scattered here and there 
with that seeming carelessness, and apparent uncon¬ 
cern, that is actually art in its full fruition, were fine, 
moss-covered fountains, antique sculptures, sun-dials 
and columns, and embowered in an especially charm¬ 
ing grove, and as remote as if ten leagues from 
Rome, was a delightful, home-like little villa, a veri¬ 
table “rus in urbe.” Chickens and goats, pigeons 
and rabbits, cows and donkeys abounded in the little 
farm behind the villa, where, though 1 did not actually 
encounter a Papal “ Bull ” I did see one venerable 
goat that might have been an Infalli-“ Billy.” To 
this delightful domain the pontiff retires during the 
summer months, and a more charming spot in which 
to pass the summer solstice, it would be difficult to 
picture. 


Only Letters 235 

I was strolling along a by-path of the park of 
the villa Borghesi when I met a most agreeable 
young fellow, a student in the American College, 
which has, he told me, a roll of eighty-five preparing, 
of course, for holy orders. They wear black cassocks 
with blue bindings and buttons, white collars, and 
broad red sashes, i. e. t Rome’s concession to the “ red, 
white, and blue.” He told me they constantly had 
baseball matches among themselves in the old amphi¬ 
theatre in the park, and that, as they are never per¬ 
mitted to shed their hampering skirts, they gird up 
their cassocks around their waists and make them 
fast with their scarfs which gives very fair play to a 
pair of “ pro-tem ” secularized legs, in gray knicker¬ 
bockers and hose. This rig, plus those hideous little 
black fuzzy tarts of hats, must make a grand spec¬ 
tacle,—say with bases full and two “strikes” called, 
and I hope to see one of these unique sacro-secular 
“ stunts ” before I leave. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Rome , March 23d, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

I have taken unto myself the regulation 
sight-seer’s cold in the head, justly chargeable to so 
many “Walks in Rome” with “hair” (uncovered). 
Many who systematically “do,” the 366 (I think) 
churches, wear silk caps, and I may come to it later, 
1 mean the “cap,” not the 366 churches, of which 




236 Only Letters 

possibly fifty are of pronounced interest. I rarely 
“do” more than two, or at the utmost three 
churches in any one day, but of course constantly 
revisit many. 

Yesterday, to “San Lorenzo, Without, 1 ' a grand 
old pile dating from 578, and with much of the origi¬ 
nal structure surviving several rebuildings. I was 
shown over it by a most charming gentleman in¬ 
cidentally a Capuchin monk whose manners and 
English were equally faultless; most of these custo¬ 
dians speak only Italian sometimes lightly “sprayed ” 
with impotent English. He took me, at my earnest 
request, out into the not-on-show cloisters that have 
been closed for years, and there bade me pluck two 
oranges from his own venerable tree by way of a 
souvenir. 

These people “ grow ” upon me steadily, especially 
the country folk and peasants around Rome, who are 
gentle, courteous, kindly and obliging, a vastly differ¬ 
ent lot from the Neapolitan, Sicilian, Genoese, and in¬ 
deed from the Southern Italian in general, with their 
vile tongues, and ever-ready stilettos. It is the sea¬ 
ports that furnish most of the criminals for export to 
America, and in general it is the “ litoral ” Italian who 
is the “ literal ” villain, but alas! how the Latin where- 
ever found, does abuse his poor little rats of horses! 

Yesterday, to a garden attached to a villa be¬ 
longing to the Knights of Malta, perched on the 
crest of Aventine, looking down into and across the 
turgid yellow Tiber. In the massive wooden gate 
that gives upon the road, is a small circular hole to 
which, by the application of an eye, one obtains a 


Only Letters 237 

wonderful view. Screened on either hand from any 
minor diversions by lofty walls of ilexes, a long 
avenue ends in a perfect arch of the same most 
bidable of trees, and precisely in the centre of that 
oval framing, looms the noble dome of St. Peter’s, 
shining in the sunlight nearly two miles distant; 
indeed this view of San Pietro “fuori keyhole” is, 
and well may be, one of the wonders of this old 
wonder world. People are now pouring into Rome 
in anticipation of Holy Week, when the extra cere¬ 
monies in the many churches never fail to draw vast 
crowds, but as most of the galleries are closed, and 
the Vatican entirely, 'tis a poor time for the sight¬ 
seer on a short allowance of time, most certainly not 
the period for “ Rome in one week.” The outside 
attractions of the Eternal City, however, are bound¬ 
less; villas, tombs, temples and ruins above ground, 
and five hundred miles of catacombs to “fall back on,” 
or better, dive into, when one is sated with superficial 
pleasures. The Forum alone means a full week for 
but a half-baked enthusiast, and the Palatine with its 
mass of concentrated interests, richly merits three or 
four visits; the Colosseum even in its shorn con¬ 
dition is a perennially inspiring delight, and it is my 
wont of an afternoon to make a strolling circuit that 
rarely omits it, and one or two other especially ad¬ 
mired bits of delight, yielding survival. 

I certainly have fallen completely under the spell of 
this marvelous city; indeed I might say of Italy 
entire, easily to me the most enchanting land that 
ever mine eyes have rested upon. I could gladly 
spend years here for the meagre weeks that scarce 


238 Only Letters 

suffice to sum up the totals of interest and delight 
that might fully occupy those years. I never felt so 
irresistibly drawn to any other foreign city, not 
excepting London, and the spell but grows in its 
enmeshing potency with each recurring day. The 
season is very cold and backward, but the almond 
and plum-trees are blooming on the brown hillsides; 
the great camelia-trees are now all of snow or 
crimson, and the red vine buds are bursting into leaf. 
The views from the crests of the suburban hills defy 
description, and then those solemn stately cypresses 
and the rock pines on the slopes, and out across the 
wide, stretching Campagna fairly engrave their im¬ 
press on the eye and mind. There seems to be a 
peculiar individuality inseparable from trees in Italy 
that renders them actually monumental; witness that 
group of rock pines on the via Appia near the tomb of 
Caecelia Mettla, the solitary one on the road to 
Posolippio on the heights overlooking the Bay of 
Naples, and as for cypresses, ten thousand of their 
sombre shafts sigh over as many shrines of glories 
past, or wail in the tempest over ruin wrought by 
the inevitable. In any spot, but a stone’s cast from 
the Italian equivalent of bustle, there falls upon the 
ear attent, that indescribably sweet, that plaintive 
mellow, reed-like song of the nightingale which at 
this season seems to be omnipresent. The trees 
directly under my window in that romantic garden 
of the Russie, resound wiTi their songs far into the 
night, at least as far as the ear of any jaded sight¬ 
seer may follow them in those hours of velvet dark¬ 
ness. I hear them as I fall asleep, and I fall awake in 


2 39 


Only Letters 

the gray dawn to their tender heraldings of day. 
Would that I had a couple of months to devote 
exclusively to the villas and super-suburban attrac¬ 
tions around Rome, some close at hand, with others 
scattered through the Sabine and Alban hills. Won¬ 
derful houses be some of these, of a decayed nobility 
sharing in the evil fortunes of their owners, and con¬ 
tributing by their very decay to a charm separated from 
the stereotyped smugness of a present competency 
. by an impassable abyss of romantic undesirability. 
These stately houses and gardens with their mutilated 
lichen-spattered statues, their stained and faded fres¬ 
coes, their porticoes with time-gnawed columns, and 
oh! the wealth of fountains, many exquisite yet, in 
the positive pathos of their rent and ragged survivals, 
crumbling and moss grown, many with tiny streams 
still trickling from shell of Triton or vase of nymph, 
shrunken to the very tears of a mournful retrospect. 
Here sits enthroned a very regal rottenness, a titled 
decay, a noble wasting that quite discredits the mere 
prettiness of an “ undoubted,” but alas! quite unusual 
solvency. All this of course, my dear fellow, is from 
a purely artistic standpoint; these be the things to 
love with a present fervor, and to leave with an 
untainted resignation. 

One of the most insistently charming Roman 
features now is the cut flower market which centres 
in the busy Piazza di Spagna clustering around the 
foot of the famous Spanish stairs. These steps of 
“ peperino,” a soft, gray volcanic stone, honeycombed 
with age and footfalls, furnish terraces of a delightful 
neutrality over which the waves of brilliant color ebb 


240 


Only Letters 

and flow. Huge limbs of flowering fruit trees, 
daffodils in positive sheaves, violets in amazing pro¬ 
fusion, pansies, cyclamen, roses (not yet a-plenty), 
delightfully fragrant; mimosa, anemones, blue flags 
(all unfurled), with other blooms unknown to me. 
The whole countryside is now starred with daffodils 
on an underfoot sky of violets, a blend to my think¬ 
ing not to be excelled on the lines of “sweetness and 
light”; the white violet is here also in great abun¬ 
dance, and as to prices, they seem preposterous. A . 
bunch of solid violets a foot across for a lira (twenty 
cents), or one of an embarrassing bigness for three 
lira. I never saw such huge bunches of violets as are 
here current; plenty of them, large enough for a 
bouquet de corsage for the breast of a dam! Yet 
another charming bouquet, this time of animate 
nature, is the group of waiting artists’ models that 
frequents the steps of a little old church (Saint 
Nonentity’s possibly), in our street the via Babuino, 
very attractive these despite the cold-blooded deliber¬ 
ation of their manufactured naturalness; “old hags” 
(hag is anything past fifty say), old men with 
“ Digby-herring ” faces, splendid, brawny young 
peasants, and no end of boys and girls, many of 
them really beautiful, if anything the young boys the 
most beautiful. Some of these boys are dressed in 
old church cushion coverings, and bits of vestments 
wrought into the most astonishing sartorial mosaics 
of jackets and breeches, with a range of color worthy 
of a Salviati, indeed such coats are plenty, as the one 
that when supplemented by unacceptable visions, 
plucked from the doting Israel, the “apple” of his 


241 


Only Letters 

eye. One boy of twelve, I never tire of watching; 
he is so irresistibly charming. Skin of a ripening 
olive, with a tiny rose on each downy cheek, great 
dreamy oxen eyes, and long seal brown hair worn 
low on each side (quite a la Cleo de Merod), hiding 
his ears and rent precisely in twain by the snowiest 
of partings on his shapely little head covered (when 
at all), with a peaked hat faded to a mellow russet, 
and with the eye of a peacock feather thrust through 
the bright green tape that serves as hat band. He is 
a downright ‘‘raving beauty/’ knows it, shows it, 
and shows that he knows it. Take the entire lot, 
perhaps twenty, and ’tis a charming bit of life and 
color as they sit on the steps in the sunshine for 
hours, like the emerald-crusted lizards met with 
everywhere under like conditions of brilliancy and 
basking. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Rome , March 26th , 19 . 

My dear M-: 

To-day with the F-quartette to a truly 
romantic spot for a not less truly Roman lunch.' 
Perched on the top of one of the spurs of Aventine, 
the Castello di Constantino is an ancient fortress 
whose thick walls, massive arches and cavernous 
cellars are eloquent of the days when its hospitality 
was peradventure not quite so indiscriminate as at 
present. It is now a famous osteria where distinctly 




242 


Only Letters 

Italian dishes are obtainable under exceptionally 
romantic conditions of scenery and service. After 
climbing a long, dark and exceedingly steep flight of 
roughly hewn stone steps, you emerge upon a broad 
flagged terrace open to the sky with awnings to fend 
the fervent sun. The view from this terrace is 
superb; on the horizon the villa dotted, Alban hills in 
their purple raiment borrowed of distance, nearer the 
broad Campagna with its ruined tombs, bits of the 
Clandian Aqueduct, and those monumental pines 
whose stately canopies fringe the Appian Way. Yet 
closer, the eye sweeps across the Circus Maxiums to 
the ruin-gorged Palatine with its stratified rov/s of 
yawning arches, piled high against the blue, and be¬ 
yond its extreme verge, there looms a corner of the 
Colosseum. From the walls of the tower on which 
we are perched, waiting to be fed, and on every side 
are vineyards yet bare and brown with their vines 
trained on light cane trellises now with the red buds 
bursting into tiny leaves, quite two weeks late this 
year. It was a glorious “Roman Holiday,” but its 
gladsome eaters did not “gladiate,” and nothing save 
that perennial victim, the ever-dying “calf” (to 
which all Europe bends its dittos in gastronomic 
adoration) was “butchered to make it.” We dis¬ 
cussed divers messes, some savory, other some ques¬ 
tionably so, lamb’s brains, cerebrally satisfactory, arti¬ 
choke hearts fried in oil, macaroni of course to per¬ 
fection, “finocchio,” i. e., fennel root, when raw not 
unlike our celery, when stewed a cabbage sans bou¬ 
quet; a dubious veal ragout, and the slimmest of 
slim asparagus, like green spaghetti and requiring for 


243 


Only Letters 

its successful assimilation a dexterity little short of 
jugglery as illustrated by one of our party with a 
courage equal to the appetite. These dishes with a 
flask of white Capri as a mordaunt for the “fixing” 
of all impressions made up our typical Roman 
dejeuner. 

On our way home a slight detour brought us to the 
Rag Fair, a street bazaar held one day each week in 
an open square near the Massimi Palace where you 
may buy about anything from a prelate’s robe stiff 
with gold embroidery to the half of a pair of snuffers. 
Really, the gathering of beautiful and odd, of rare 
and worthless, of artistic and hideous things is won¬ 
derful. Of course, hither flock all tourists on bargains 
bent, to try their phrase-book lore on dealers who 
know quite enough English to be masters of the 
situation, and you meet them going home laden 
with spoils, proclaiming themselves from the burst¬ 
ing, stringless, newspaper parcels in which they are 
presumably concealed. It is great fun to listen to the 
chaffering that limps so sadly from the lingo lack, 
and to note the efforts made pro and con extortion. 
Quite apart from the inevitable hazards of mere mer¬ 
chandising, exceeding few, I fancy, escape the Rag 
Fair un-“bitten” for it is the chosen haunt, “the 
happy hunting ground,” so to speak, of “ Pulex 
irritans ”—Romanus. 

Parting with the F.’s at the fair and leaving them 
rejoicing over a real bargain in a crimson silk damask 
bed valance, I strolled up the Palatine Hill, among the 
wrecks of those enormous buildings that once 
crowded its summit. 1 particularly noticed the tre- 


244 


Only Letters 

mendous foundations upon which were reared palaces 
that were the wonder of the then known world, and 
I wandered for an hour among the vast piers built of 
those large yellow Roman bricks (tiles actually) laid 
in a cement almost metaline in its stability, that has 
preserved to us these remnants of a one-time mag¬ 
nificence built to endure. 

Yesterday I paid a most delightful visit to a re¬ 
markable villa near the city wall at the gate San 
Lorenzo. Once the estate of a Roman noble, a few 
years back it was sold to a Russian, and it now bears 
the distinctly Slavic name of Wolkonski; but bar its 
name, is still preeminently Italian. Entering a modern 
iron gate and passing some conservatories and green¬ 
houses, with a lot of every-day flower beds, you 
reach the brow of a little hill, descend it, turn to the 
right, and in a moment you are back in the seven¬ 
teenth century. Traversing the entire length of this 
old garden now shrunken to possibly twenty acres 
(it was once a large estate), runs a bit of the Claudian 
Aqueduct built a. d. 52, in its entirety forty-two 
miles long with splendid arches perhaps twenty feet 
high and ten or twelve in width, a veritable moun¬ 
tain range of that wonderful brickwork of those hard 
yellow bricks, about one and a half inches thick by 
sixteen by ten inches. Verily in the days of Roman 
dominance, brickmaking must have been a great in¬ 
dustry in the Tiber valley, and a vast army of slaves 
have been kept busy to furnish the billions of bricks 
that were used in public works alone. Many of 
these bricks bear their maker’s stamp as clear and 
legible as if imprinted yesterday. Any Roman 


245 


Only Letters 

bricks, of course, are but recent compared with those 
that the Nile ooze gives back to us, stamped with 
cartouches and characters 6,000 years old, and yet ab¬ 
solutely clear and uninjured. Is it not a remarkable 
fact that an atom of earth, tempered with another 
element, and then exposed to the all devouring one, 
yields about the only man-made article upon which 
“ time ” tries his teeth to so little seeming purpose ? 
All metals corrode, even gold loses in bulk after vast 
lapses of time, marbles and stones crumble in most 
environments, but the burned brick or tile endures, 
apparently unchanged by any mere wasting process. 
But I seem to have kept on too far “to the right ” in 
that garden and to have wandered into a reminiscent 
“ brick-yard,” so let us turn back to something less 
“enduring” and (possibly?) more endurable. 

Behind this range of lofty arches was a bit of un¬ 
tamed wildness, quite left to itself save for a few 
winding paths. Clumps of the unfailingly pictur¬ 
esque rock pines with their smooth branchless trunks 
of bronze for fifty, sixty, seventy feet, and then cul¬ 
minating in a wide-spread canopy of blue-green, 
resinous verdue, cypresses of great age, and of a 
never-lacking dignity and elegance, towering aloft 
in plumes of green akin to blackness. Under these 
trees a tangled, unkempt mat of ground, and climb¬ 
ing ivy, myrtle, box and diverse greenery, and under 
these again, upon the very earth, violets, purple and 
white, with anemones in profusion. This wild-wood 
bit was as still as death until I had hidden behind a 
thick clump, when at once several nightingales poured 
out their sweet, I think the sweetest bird notes I ever 


246 Only Letters 

heard, a delight in perfect accord with the sunny 
silence of this little solitude. These bits of aqueduct 
were covered with a dense mass of ivy and other 
vines, with trees growing through its arches, and 
even on its crumbling top. Some of the arches were 
left to nature’s untrammeled decoration, while others 
were cleared to form vistas through which the eye 
could sweep across the broad Campagna, now ex¬ 
quisitely green in its new spring finery, to the Alban 
hills and then run up those sunny slopes to Frascati, 
Tivoli and other little hamlets gleaming as tiny white 
and yellow dots in the billows of tree-tops. Other 
arches lead up by a few steps to a terrace beyond, 
others were devoted to the display of ancient statues 
and vases, many of these found on the estate. By a 
very narrow stairway, almost hidden in a mass of 
ivy, with a strenuosity of stem worthy of Michael 
Angelo, I climbed to the top of the range of arches 
and found a tiny arbor with a seat for two (if in per¬ 
fect accord) at the extreme end of the ruin, with a 
glorious view far and wide on either hand. The roof 
to this delectable retreat was formed by two great 
pines whose branches met and mingled just above 
one’s head. Looking down from this shady perch, 
on the one hand, was the wild bit already noted, on 
the other a perfect garden in the pure Italian manner 
of the seventeen hundreds, with the low curving 
walls of a pergola, ending long paths screened by 
green walls of venerable box or ilex, and with stiff 
but stately potted myrtle trees, topping the moss- 
grown walls. Amphorae, busts, and fountains, with 
classic bits, arranged with that exquisite probability 


247 


Only Letters 

that in its convincing naturalness is the quintessence 
of art expression, meet the eye at every turn. Little 
circular temples at the intersection of paths shelter a 
Diana nasally deficient, a Juno armless, or a Venus 
with a drapery of time-woven lichens, in the which 
the sculptor had no participation. Into the garden 
walls were let countless bits of incised slabs along 
with fragments of architectural detail, etc., in a most 
delightful disorder. Beyond this charming pleas- 
aunce was a tiny vineyard, orchards, and vegetable 
garden, then followed a little poultry yard, and lastly, 
precisely the villa such a setting demanded, an ideal 
Italian country house. Within the encircling walls 
of such a paradise, it seemed impossible that a filthy 
city suburb, swarming with dirty children, squalid 
adults, and with begging, the only “ industry" prop¬ 
erly so called, could exist on the other side of that 
fender, but so it was, and the clang of its closing 
gate only announced me as a promising new arrival, 
to be importuned for undeserved alms. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


c J{ome, April jd, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Rome fairly swarms now with the two 
branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the leading 
“sights," the shops and streets, resound with the 
“A" served either “broad," or as those “ broaden- 
ers " claim, nasally. In the past week there has been 




248 Only Letters 

a veritable tidal-wave of those tilted “sailors” that 
Albion has decreed to be equally well suited to the 
female crania of first and second childhood, to ten, or 
decern; plus threescore, and of our own fair country¬ 
women, the assembly is a large one. 

The longer I stay here, the more potently its charm 
takes hold upon me, and the more distasteful grows 
the thought of leaving. This is the only city in a 
foreign land of which to know that I should never 
see it more, would be a genuine sorrow. I can per¬ 
fectly well understand why so many come back here 
year after year, as come they do. I’m not ashamed 
to own to having tossed my two soldi into the Trevi 
Fountain, and then to have taken a good deep 
draught of the possibly weak solution of copper, but 
potent magnetizer so created, and then to have turned 
away believing this: 

Who drinks of Trevi’s sparkling tide, 

Hath plighted faith in waters sweet, 

That once again the Tiber’s side 
Shall know his wandering feet. 


The peasant folk around Rome are distinctly a good 
lot, slow, but most industrious, good-natured and, as 
a rule, remarkably civil and obliging;—certainly so, 
“ fuori mura.” The small farmers and wine-growers 
of the Campagna drive into the city with their loads 
of casks in most picturesque carts, with huge wheels, 
and one poor little donkey or undersized horse, the 
animal so out of all proportion to the great shafts that 
he reminds one of a rat caught in a pair of red, blue 
or green tongs. On these carts they build curious 


249 


Only Letters 

little semicircular niches of light poles, covered some¬ 
times with carpet, sometimes with sheepskin with 
the wool-side in, or with some sort of a stout fabric. 
Often the insides of these niches, wherein the driver 
sits, are ornamented with gaudy prints of saints or 
of popular sinners culled from lurid local journals. 
In these curious little booths quite protected from the 
sun they jog along when “light,” often singing or 
playing on the shepherd’s pipe, or dozing, creep 
along when the poor little beast is almost totally 
eclipsed with his cruelly oppressive load. The con¬ 
stantly encountered processions of these country carts 
is a highly entertaining experience. 

One day last week to the top of St. Peter’s dome, 
and was then and there able to grasp in some«degree 
its stupendous proportions, especially from the gal¬ 
leries that encircle its interior, from which one’s eyes 
can measure by objects close at hand the immensities 
of all surroundings. Later I went up into the ball on 
top of the dome, a hot, stuffy and quite unprofitable 
experience, wherein you see naught, and feel about 
one and two “naughts,” with the sun of Bella Italia 
playing on that air-tight copper sphere. You climb 
into this spherical discomfort by a perfectly perpen¬ 
dicular ladder through a tube barely large enough to 
permit of the passage of an,—well let it go at “ Ex- 
Adonis.” The view from the balcony just under the 
ball is wonderful and abundantly well repays “ such 
a gitten up-stairs.” Painters certainly are a droll lot, 
in the Borghesi gardens; the other day a flock of four 
were drawn up in a line all painting “at” the well- 
known little circular temple, with its eight graceful 


250 


Only Letters 

columns covering an old, and alas! long vacated 
pedestal, that stands at the head of a glorious avenue 
of ancient ilex-trees. All were painting from the 
same side, and with precisely the same light upon 
their patiently posing model. One painted it a 
shrieking blue, another a brownish purple splashed 
with white, another a “yallery” green, and the 
fourth an “olio" of about everything on her pallete. 
Now had I tried my “prentice hand ” at it I should 
certainly have advertised my color blindness in a deep 
gray. Beyond all question, each one of those four 
limners could instantly lay hands on at least three 
preposterous colorists, and so doth the eye artistic 
ever feed itself, in sooth. 

I have been devoting a succession of superb days 
to various excursions away from the city. One glo¬ 
rious morning last week with the F.’s, I took the steam 
tram at eight o’clock for the villa of Hadrian, some 
fifteen miles from the walls, and after leaving the 
train a walk of twenty minutes brought us to the 
entrance of these ruins, marvelous even when com¬ 
pared with the most glorious buildings reared in the 
Eternal City at the zenith of its splendor. In the 
grounds of about one hundred and sixty acres, the 
Emperor Hadrian, between 117 and 138 a. d. seems 
to have concentrated all that enormous wealth, a pro¬ 
found knowledge of, and intense interest in, Greek 
art, plus the despotic antonomy conceded a Roman 
Imperator, could accomplish in the creation of an 
earthly paradise, really a small Imperial City rather 
than a mere villa as it is universally miscalled. Turn¬ 
ing off from the gleaming white road leading up from 


251 


Only Letters 

the station to its entrance, and circling an ancient 
crumbling tower, we enter a narrow, sunken way 
between two long rows of the grandest cypresses in 
all Italy. Enormous gnarled trunks, each bearing 
aloft its towering pyramidal plume of bronze-green 
foliage, and each so overgrown with a mass of ivy, 
that scarce a vestige of the great boles are visible. 
Under this majestic peristyle, great patches of blue 
and white violets lend their charms to the vivid 
greens of fresh spring grasses, and the soft air is 
laden with their perfume, new distilled by a recent 
shower. As we loitered along this silent avenue, its 
white road dappled with great splashes of sunshine, 
the air resounded with the blended songs of many 
nightingales, hidden in the dense foliage, seemingly 
pouring out their very souls to swell an exquisite and 
consonant chorus. Passing with a lingering deliber¬ 
ation through this delectable anteroom, we encounter 
a constant succession of the surviving remnants of 
palaces and gardens, of fountains and forae, of baths 
and theatres, a vast stadium, of terraces and towers, 
of colonnades and pavilions. Of many of these at 
least enough remains to eloquently suggest the 
splendors that made this loved creation of the great 
Hadrian, art patron, traveler and man of letters, one 
of the wonders of his era. In some of the halls and 
in one vast bath, were considerable patches of fine 
mosaic pavements and here and there walls with 
fragments of the beautiful marbles with which they 
were once encrusted, while on every hand were ten¬ 
antless niches, columns and bits of architectural de¬ 
tails of exquisite workmanship. In one of the many 


252 


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rubbish littered ruins, lay the remnant of a fine 
Corinthian capital, with two of its acanthus leaves 
still practically intact, and it almost hidden by a rank 
growth of actual acanthus leaves. Here was at once 
inspiration and achievement, a motif and its treat¬ 
ment. 

In that “counterfeit presentment,” was an “ex¬ 
cathedra” art deliverance that has survived for cen¬ 
turies unchallenged, beside its frail incitement, “ mere 
grass of the field that to-day is, and to-morrow is 
cast into the oven.” As I looked upon it, I thought 
of the man who wrought that capitol; doubtless a 
Greek slave, who in this vast assemblage of the best 
that Greek art, stimulated by Roman gold, could 
achieve in the first Christian centuries, may have 
sprinkled with his chips just such a growth, as he 
transmuted that humble weed to stone, and sent it 
down through the ages, a standard of architectural 
beauty of unquestioned Catholicity. Buildings in 
ruins succeed each other in a marvelous and bewil¬ 
dering sequence, and with a brief hiatus for lunch, in 
a beautiful little white marble portico giving upon a 
terraced garden, we wandered through this wonder¬ 
land until the declining sun was sending its beams 
low down, across the broad reaches of the green 
plain, and the singing ploughmen were driving home 
their great silver-gray oxen, when the waiting train 
soon carried us back to the Porta San Lorenzo. 

As ever yours, 


F. 


Only Letters 


253 


Rome, April 6lh, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

As I remember, my last told of a day at 
the villa Adriana which was followed by another 
charming visit in the same goodly company to Tivoli, 
which, of course, included a stroll through that most 
romantic of gardens attached to the famous Villa 
d’Este. In that venerable pleasaunce all that I have 
elsewhere rhapsodized over, touching the “subtle 
soulfulness” of surburban rotting, and the delicious 
dilletanti-ism of decades of decay, finds its fullest 
fruition. Not one of the essential elements is here 
lacking, moss-covered fountains, spent cascades, 
crippled nymph and shattered triton, tottering ter¬ 
races and balconies, grottoes and stairways all well 
advanced in the masticating process by those inevi¬ 
table “teeth,” and all overshadowed by groves of my 
cherished pines and cypresses, through which the 
views across the Campagna are simply glorious. 

Thence on to Tivoli proper, with its well-known 
and incessantly exploited cascades and its unique 
Greek temple in the rear of the poor little inn where 
we lunch with the shadows of those splendid Corin¬ 
thian shafts falling athwart the table, as we look 
down into the gorge to the mundane accompaniments 
of macaroni, salad, and finochio, of gorgonzola and 
Chianti. 

On yet another day with a table d’hote acquaint¬ 
ance, I drive down to Ostia, in the remote past a 
harbor of importance, but long since like much of the 
Tiber, so filled in with silt as to be inaccessible. The 



254 


Only Letters 

ruins of the ancient city, founded in the sixth cen¬ 
tury b. c. by Ancus Martius, are wonderful, including 
a noble forum, and these abundantly well repaid the 
drive of twenty-six miles demanded by the trip. 

In the ruins of an ancient warehouse, one of many 
that once lined the river’s bank, I saw, possibly 
twenty huge earthen jars imbedded in the original 
floor where they had been used to store oil, wine, 
grain, etc., perhaps one thousand years previous to 
our approving inspection of them. Orvieto, high 
perched on an isolated tufa rock, with its narrow 
sombre streets, and glorious little cathedral dating 
from 1285 (of course, for all of my “dates,” I yield 
the palm to Baedeker), supplied yet another delight¬ 
ful all-day excursion. After ascending from the rail¬ 
road station by a little rope-traction car, we spent an 
hour in the really beautiful cathedral, and then drove 
slowly through the steep, dark, little streets, paved 
with the natural rock. The gloomy houses were of 
a depressingly uniform sadness of hue, a dull unvary¬ 
ing gray, but from the tops of garden walls and from 
countless crevices and holes in these cheerless abodes, 
sprang great masses of golden wall-flowers that 
gladdened the dual senses of sight and smell, as the 
air was heavy with their perfume. As its sole 
guests, we lunched at the sleepy little inn, reached 
through an ancient arched passage, where the entire 
family, father, mother, son and daughter, concen¬ 
trated distinctly capable energies upon the preparation 
of our meal, and then hovered around us in cour¬ 
teously anxious relays to anticipate any possible 
further requirements. The chicken was at once 


255 


Only Letters 

adolescent, and of a true Rembrandt brown, and the 
salad with its more than suspicion of accentuating 
garlic, divided the honors with masterly macaroni as 
a toothsome memory of unalloyed pleasure, while 
the bit of superlatively creamy “gorgonzola ” as a 
postlude, quite capped the climax of our gastronomic 
content. After discharging the preposterously trifling 
score, we strolled out of the courtyard and looked 
back from the corner of the little piazza to see the 
group of four, framed by the ancient archway, wav¬ 
ing their hands in kindly adieus. To my thinking, 
for real kindness of heart and for a courtesy that in¬ 
stantly responds to any just demand upon it, the 
Italian peasant or small tradesman of northern or 
mid-Italy, simply has no peer in Europe. 

After a little stroll, we drove out to the ancient 
Etruscan tombs in the suburbs, dating back to the 
fifth century b. c. We found the necropolis in the 
midst of a blooming orchard, sloping gently up from 
the highway to the base of the cliff, upon which the 
town is built. Under the blossom-laden almond and 
plum-trees, we traversed several streets that have 
been excavated and the massive tombs uncovered. 
These tombs are built in regular rows like the streets 
of a town with walls of great slabs of dressed stone, 
about nine feet high, and with peaked roofs formed 
of similar slabs. The owner’s name was often 
carved on the flat lintel over the narrow doorway. 
Inside there were two compartments, an inner room 
where on stone benches the bodies were laid, and an 
outer room for the friends who constantly came to 
commune with the departed spirits of their dear ones 


256 Only Letters 

It is, as you may remember, when just about to 
test their wings, that “blessings brighten ” and con¬ 
sonant with this axiom, the day before Rome com¬ 
menced to be a sunny memory, was devoted to an 
excursion which was and is and ever must remain a 
“ white stone ” in a reminiscent rosary of many such. 
Once more the F.’s and your scribe left Rome about 
nine, for Albano and were soon winding slowly 
around the gradually ascending curves of the Alban 
hills with ever shifting and enchanting views across 
the now beautifully verdant Campagna, the which 
we were the better able to enjoy by reason of the 
low velocity of Italian trains in high places. 

Leaving the little white town nestling on its ter¬ 
raced ledge and basking in the brilliant spring sun¬ 
shine, we took the white highroad that wound 
through a deep valley beset on either hand with 
grassy slopes and pasture-lands, and with masses of 
wild flowers that filled the balmy air with a delicious 
indefinable perfume, as we stroll along, constantly 
met and greeted by peasants old and young, many in 
their gay costumes, but courteous and kindly all. A 
leisurely walk of about an hour brought us to the lit¬ 
tle village of Genzanno, on the verge of the Lake of 
Nemi, the objective point of our journey. This lake, 
about three and a half miles in its circuit, occupies 
the crater of a volcano, extinct for ages, its waters 
of a depth profound, are so far below the rim of the 
crater that its surface is seldom even ruffled by the 
breeze. It forms a vast mirror on whose shining 
surface trees and sky, villa and vineyard, in short its 
entire surroundings are reproduced in a marvelously 


Only Letters 257 

beautiful manner, precisely as in the lens of a fine 
camera. From this intensely blue sheet of ever 
slumberous water, the crater sides of a rich russet- 
brown soil, ascend in a series of terraces upon which 
is lavished all that Italian husbandry knows of culti¬ 
vation with the result that from the narrow white 
road that follows the margin of the lake, and rises to 
the little gray old town of Nemi, to the line where 
the rich volcanic soil gives place to barren rocks; the 
whole great basin is an inverted cone of wonderful 
verdure. The steep little pastures, to feed in which, 
the cattle must perforce be “inclined,” were gay and 
sweet with wild flowers. From the extreme upper 
rim of this charming chalice to which we clambered, 
the view was truly glorious with that marvelous mir¬ 
ror duplicating its delights, and with glimpses of little 
white villas and hamlets among the sombre olive 
groves, as dazzling “teeth ” in the face of “smiling ” 
nature. Beyond all this, and as a well befitting frame 
to such a picture, the snow-capped Apenines 
gleamed in the sunshine, what time the fleecy cloud 
banks left its disc undimmed. Reluctantly turning 
away from this enchanting scene, we retrace our 
steps Albano-ward, drawn by keen appetites, and, 
finally, by a poor equine wreck, as great a ruin in the 
flesh as any stone one of the Forum. Fortunately, 
our way lay down-hill, certes fortunately for steed, 
crew and carriage, the latter being far advanced in 
dissolution and holding total collapse over our heads, 
as by a single “Damoclean” (“horse’’) hair. Pre¬ 
posterous delays in the serving of a frugal lunch, en¬ 
abled us to easily lose the only train back to Rome, 


258 Only Letters 

and opened up a quite unlooked for, but altogether . 
delightful alternative in the drive of thirteen miles on 
the Appian Way across the Campagna to the Porta 
San Lorenzo, and the setting sun. Tis really too late 
to add another line to this now, so I will defer the 
details of that unique journey for the time being. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Rome , April 9th, 1901 . 

My dear M-: 

My last letter closed as I remember with 
an impending drive back to Rome after having missed 
the train at Albano. One of the fairest days that may 
be in the early springtide was slowly mellowing to 
the glorious fruition of an Italian sunset when, after 
a deal of entirely good-natured chaffering we set 
forth in an excellent landau behind a good little team 
and their amiable driver. Slowly we unwind around 
the hilltop setting of Albano, and in that descent con¬ 
tinually gaze upon a scene with a world of beauty 
quite past my poor telling. We soon emerge upon 
the great historic plain, and journey along that 
remarkable monument of Roman construction, the 
famous Via Appia, commenced b. c. 31 2 by Appius 
Claudius and extending from Rome to Brindisi. The 
original road of Appius was but fifteen feet in width, 
but it certainly is a wonderful example of patience, 
perseverance and paving. From the base of the 
Alban Hills and on either hand the wav was lined 




2 59 


Only Letters 

with intermittent fragmentary survivals of former 
ages, tombs and monuments, steles and pedestals of 
which all record has been lost, with detached or 
continuous sections of those noble aqueducts ever in 
view, some with arches worthy of the Caesarian 
structures of the Palatine hill. Often overgrown 
with, indeed fairly smothered by enormous masses 
of ivy, or in the open plains quite bare, now rising to 
their original stature from grain-field or pasture, or 
again so nearly engulphed by the encroachment of 
centuries that you catch a mere glimpse of daylight, 
as through a series of seeming transoms. Crumbling 
bits of some once splendid structure, its very name 
and nature now utterly lost, tombs humble or stately, 
ancient milestones, some with inscriptions yet de¬ 
cipherable by the eye of a concrete faith,—and a six¬ 
penny guide-book. On everything of stone, either 
frail mosses of a tender green, or that beautiful 
silvery lichen that overspreads all with its mantle in a 
seeming charitable effort to redeem rottenness and 
dignify decay. We passed several high, repellent 
stone walls into which, as I think previously noted, 
were builded scraps of aforetime loveliness, a Greek 
profile hobnobbing with a floriated moulding or the 
battered head of an old Pan built in above the richly 
wrought lintel of some noble doorway, while as for 
inscriptions and slabs from tomb or catacomb, they 
were quite past numbering. Passing the rusting gate 
of one of these high-walled inclosures, perhaps but a 
fleeting glimpse of a charming old garden is had, but 
for towering rock pine and lofty cypress “stone 
walls do not a prison make,” as these transcend the 


26 o 


Only Letters 

secretive powers of any mason, past or present, and 
bear aloft and spread abroad for leagues a beauty 
quite untrammeled. I find myself, after the manner 
of those unfortunates of the Babylonish captivity, 
continually “harping on the trees," albeit not with a 
“Semitic harp," nor yet upon the willow of the 
Euphrates. I have constantly reaffirmed my intense 
admiration for the native cypress. It impresses me 
as easily the most insistently noticeable natural object 
in an Italian landscape, and it seems to harmonize 
perfectly with the ruins of a long-departed grandeur. 

Those towering columns of a living bronze add to 
the inherent dignity of a palace, lend the picturesque 
touch to a villa, or seem to exhale an appreciable 
pathos, as they sentinel the slopes of that green hill¬ 
side in the English cemetery where sleep so many of 
our Saxon kin. For ten good miles our drive was a 
constant succession of delights; but alas! as we 
neared the city we passed the race-track, just as it 
was pouring forth its throngs of patrons and in a 
twinkling we were but an unconsenting item in a 
mass of rushing, yelling people, in carriages and 
afoot, and with such an unsought, uncherished en¬ 
tourage, we drove through the gate of San Lorenzo 
just as the darkness fell. 

To-morrow I leave Rome for the north, after six 
weeks of unalloyed delight, forty-two days in which 
I can recall no waking hour that was not pleasure 
laden. In all of that time it rained but a single day 
after a manner that demanded a roof tree, and in the 
two superb collections on the “ Capitoline," I scarce 
took note of it. 


Only Letters 261 

I have, with what possible vanity prompts me to 
regard as a laudable avoidance, spared you a deal of 
epistolary “ padding,” made up of dry details of my 
daily doings. I have studiously refrained from un¬ 
loading upon you, a mere Baedeker-culled list of 
churches, museums, etc., etc., visited and have, or at 
least hope I have, in my letters kept unavoidable and 
constantly recurring raptures of a virulent type in a 
decent subordination ? The forty-two aforesaid days 
industriously devoted to its stupendous mass of 
wonders, have best served to impress upon me the 
fact that to really see Rome means many months. 
With robust and uninterrupted health, absolute 
master,—nay downright despot of my time, and 
with a nature not an utter stranger to a want-to-see- 
and-know-ness, I have seen at least the chief sights 
of Rome. I have visited most of the museums and 
notable collections several times and the most im¬ 
portant ones often enough to have made myself 
reasonably familiar with the special treasures of each. 
Apropos of art marvels I have ever held that the one 
art work of all others that most profoundly impresses 
me is the peerless Venus of Milo of the Louvre. 
While yet staunchly loyal to her, I found in the 
“ Dying Gaul ” of the Capitoline a dangerous rival 
and the constantly recurring delight of many visits to 
that amazing work, will ever remain one of the most 
vivid of those joys of retrospect, with which the 
traveler peoples his past. 

As I have before remarked, of all the foreign cities 
it has been my good fortune to visit, the one and only 
one that I have ever left with an intense desire to re- 


262 


Only Letters 

visit is this one of the Seven Hills, and I shall ever 
hope to see Rome yet once again “ Ave Roma 
Immortalis! ” 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Perugia , April / jth, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

I left Rome last week, and shaking the 
revered dust of the Eternal City from most reluctant 
feet, reached this delightfully quaint old Etruscan 
stronghold in the early twilight of one of these peer¬ 
less days. 

After a long and winding climb the coach put me 
down at the portal of the “ Grand,” which, facing on 
a little piazza, crowns the summit of the lofty hill 
upon which Perugia, after the manner of various 
other foci of mediaeval strife, crouches like some 
beast of prey. The hill upon whose summit the 
city clusters, and adown whose sides flow the dwin¬ 
dling ends of its wandering streets, rises thirteen 
hundred feet above the Tiber valley, affording from 
all points a cyclorama of surpassing charm. Spring 
is now strongly assertive, and on these hillsides far 
and near, beautiful white, and silver gray oxen, 
yoked to most primitive ploughs are turning furrows 
in the rich volcanic soil, that fairly “ smoke ” in the 
warm sunshine with their latent fertility. Amid the 
sea of gray-green olive yards, patches of snowy 
white, and of rose-pink, forecast the almond, and 




Only Letters 263 

plum, and the vines now making up for an enforced 
backwardness, are rapidly covering their trellises 
with tender green. In the morning, and at evening 
a purple haze shrouds the wide valley which apart 
from the ploughed fields is now exquisitely verdant 
with the immature leafage of spring-time, as it 
spreads daily over ever widening areas of glebe and 
grain-field, and a mere ribbon of silver, winding 
through the valley, marks the Tiber’s sinuous course. 

On a facing hillside far off across this blooming 
vale, and gleaming white and ghostlike in the dis¬ 
tance, one can faintly discern revered Assissi of justly 
sacred memory. Perugian streets precipitous and 
step-abounding, wind wonderfully, and lead one 
through deep crevasses walled with ancient houses 
occasionally redeemed from the dreary uniformity of 
an all pervading grayness, by pots of bright flowers, 
geraniums, or golden wall-flowers, that fairly glow 
in the sunless semi-gloom of the narrow courts, and 
little “ cul de sacs.” In many of these grim thorough¬ 
fares, arches spring from house to house, and at the 
endings of the street so spanned, one constantly 
catches enchanting “bits” of the fair Umbrian land 
beyond, through these tall windows of the highway. 
Such an archway with an overflowing fringe of wall¬ 
flowers on its top, and with mosses and ivy clinging 
to its sides, is a charming “bit ” that when the light 
serves, rarely lacks an artist or two absorbed in the 
transfer of those charms to pad or canvass. The 
“Grand,” with a comfort, and on a general plane, 
scarce that, was full to overflowing when I arrived, 
and to my great but carefully suppressed delight, I 


264 Only Letters 

was forced to take a large corner room in the upper¬ 
most floor actually in the mansard roof. This room 
had three circular windows each about five feet in 
diameter, one giving upon the city proper, and the 
other two upon the lovely valley, including Assissi’s 
green hillside, far away. By standing some distance 
back of these “port-holes,’' and at varying angles, I 
could frame for myself a series of delectable pictures, 
and easily discover where the Umbrian School found 
those delicious bits of quiet landscape with which 
they so constantly garnish the sufferings of a saint or 
the strivings of a sinner. Often these mere shreds 
of reality seem to express the very last drop of 
chromatic sweetness from those wonderful greens, 
and blues, and grays, from the browns and russets, 
in which were writ those charming marginal notes to 
the masterpieces of Perugino and Raphael, of Pen- 
tunicchio, and of various lesser lights of that school. 
This of the actual masters, but alas ! that some of 
the insistently “lesser lights” in the Tusco-Umbrian 
firmament, should (as they certainly do) indulge in 
skies of the “sweet-entre” type, in trees with an ar¬ 
rangement of foliage distinctly tonsorial, springing 
from crags with a systematic harmony of ruggedness 
that broadly hints at a “massaging” of the face of 
nature. Of course, here in the field of his most con¬ 
tinuous labors, the works of that wonderfully gifted 
inconsequent wanderer, Pietro Vanucci, better known 
as “Perugino,” are seen at their best. There is a 
small, but most interesting gallery on the upper 
floors of the fine old Municipal Palace, dating back to 
1281, its front decorated with the armorial bearings 


Only Letters 265 

of former allied towns, some links of an apocryphal 
chain, and with a finely wrought bronze griffin and 
lion, smiling heraldicly upon the little Piazza del 
Duomo. 

In this collection are several superb works of the 
famous Pietro, some of whose pictures (heresy 
though it may be), I enjoy more than many by his 
pupil, the immortal Raphael, perhaps by common 
consent, the most gifted limner that ever set brush 
to canvas. In two small rooms of the old Chamber of 
Commerce, the walls and ceilings are entirely covered 
with frescoes by Perugino, which with the most 
elaborate decorative scheme of these exquisite little 
cabinets, are eloquent reminders of his mastery of 
drawing, color and design. A small and quite un¬ 
finished Cathedral, with little of interest on either 
side of its grimy portal, faces the noble old Municipal 
Palace, and between these in the little Piazza del 
Duomo there rises a monumental fountain adorned 
with beautiful statues and carvings, around which 
the peasant girls gather with their brass and earthen 
ewers to “swap” gossip, draw water and inciden¬ 
tally, attention from the never absent group of hand¬ 
some male loungers. Built into the outer wall of the 
Cathedral, like a sea mew’s nest, and facing the little 
square was a tiny pulpit from which I doubt not, the 
claims of salvation, and the cries of sedition alternated 
in the making of that strenuous history, common to 
these venerable Italian cities. From this little focal 
piazza the open mouths of various narrow streets in¬ 
vite to a descent to the lower quarters of this delight¬ 
fully quaint jumble of lingering medievalism. 


266 


Only Letters 

Crowning the “Hill of Calvary," the Basilica of San 
Pietro with an ancient monastery linked to it, and 
a delightful, but forbidden garden of a tantalizingly 
venerable seeming, to the eye-shots aimed at its im¬ 
penetrable ilex walls, stands isolated on a bold head¬ 
land projecting into the valley and from a little bal¬ 
cony, entered by a door from the choir, the whole 
wide Umbrian valley may be swept for miles, with 
glimpses of the distant thread-like Tiber, on its stead¬ 
fast way, to Rome and immortality. When the 
sun has rent the early morning veil of mist, the 
churches of Assissi are in plain sight on the dis¬ 
tant hillside, with straggling rows of cypresses in¬ 
denting the sky-line with their most picturesque of 
fractures. 

San Pietro is an astonishing mass of congested 
decoration, from its gorgeously carved and gilded 
flat ceiling to the rows of splendid granite columns 
that uphold it, the latter said to have been taken from 
a heathen temple that stood here in the remote past. 
The walls are fairly crammed with paintings in oil, 
fresco, and bad taste, many of them frankly daubs, 
others merely regrettable, and a few, very few, tine 
works, including some little half length,—Saints in 
the Sacristy, by Perugino. The choir stalls are a 
truly marvelous example of fine “intarsia," i. e. f of 
inlaid woodwork, dating from 1591, and treating of 
various scriptural subjects, with a freedom of con¬ 
ception and portrayal altogether unique, indeed quite 
recalling Hildesheim. Taken as a whole, this church 
was certainly a gorgeous blend of form and color, 


Only Letters 267 

and as such it abundantly well repaid the hour and 
lira devoted to its seeing. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Siena , April 16th, ipor. 

My dear M-: 

I spent a delightful, never to be forgot¬ 
ten day at Assissi, and was favored with the best 
possible light in which to see the wonderful Giotto 
frescoes of the lower church, this ever a matter of 
uncertainty. In the upper church a satisfactory light 
is usually present, and I lingered long over those 
truly wonderful pictures, the simple realism and per¬ 
fect naturalness of which is remarkable when we re¬ 
member that Giotto was the pupil of Cimabue whose 
few surviving works depict mankind with decided 
lingerings of the cadaverous rigidities of the Byzan¬ 
tine school. From the painting of such Oriental un¬ 
humanities, Cimabue certainly hinted at emancipa¬ 
tion, but it was his peasant born pupil, the little 
goatherd whose brush first inspired pictured humanity 
with the breath of a vital realism. 

Before visiting the double Franciscan Churches, I 
made a detour to the church of Sancta Maria degli 
Angeli, and saw that imposing pile, and its blend of 
historic and traditional details, after the prescribed 
routine of all much visited shrines, including, of 
course, the famous little garden with the thornless 
roses of St. Francis. In the oratory beneath the 




268 


Only Letters 

dome, I noticed that the roughly hewn stones of 
which it is built had actually been kissed to a high 
polish by the adoring lips of the tens of thousands 
who make pilgrimages to this famous shrine and pay 
their homage to the revered memory of one of the 
purest souls that ever dwelt in mortal flesh. After 
seeing this church to my satisfaction, spending a 
couple of hours over the Giotto frescoes in the other 
two, and stopping to admire a beautiful little Greek 
temple with fine Corinthian columns claimed to be 
of the Augustan period, 1 drove to the station where 
I had left my baggage and after two changes of cars 
and zigzagging over several branch roads, I finally 
reached this place, another mediaeval city with 
a potential past. 

Apropos of baggage, I heard a rather good story 
when in Rome from a man who sat by me at table, 
a confirmed traveler he, and well advanced in “table 
d’hote-age.” A young Harvard student desired to 
leave his trunk at a small station, visit the town, and 
then take it up and go on the same day. As he was 
deficient in Italian, he was somewhat at a loss how to 
explain his intentions to the station-master, but at 
last hit upon this expedient. Pointing to his trunk 
and looking the man squarely in the eye, he said 
slowly and clearly, “ Requiescat in pace,” and then 
after an impressive pause and pointing to himself, 
“ Resurgam! ”—Another table d’hote fragment. First 
female tourist to newly arrived friend, “ Mary, don’t 
you just love Boticelli!” Mary, loquiter,—“Well, 
er—yes, rather, but do you know I somehow prefer 
Chianti! it is so pleasantly tart! ” 


Only Letters 269 

But let us return to Siena where, after an excellent 
dinner at the Grand Hotel de Sienne, I speedily 
sought that invincible stronghold of the weary, and 
anon drifted off into a dreamless oblivion with a 
vague consciousness of a lot of voices singing to a 
guitar in a near-by courtyard. Siena covers three 
connected summits, and in common with all of these 
hill crowning communities possesses at least one 
material advantage denied the less exalted cities of 
the plain. The drainage and general hygenic 
features of urban Italy are justly open to adverse 
criticism, but in all of these hill-towns, the very 
“gravity ” of the situation is its satisfactory solution. 
When it rains up here among the hills, each one of 
these winding, steep-pitched, granite-paved lanes 
becomes, for the time being, a mountain torrent, and 
without the expenditure of labor or money the streets 
are constantly flushed to perfection. All refuse is 
carried to the lower levels below the town proper 
and in consequence the reek of Naples and the never 
absent malodors of Rome are never encountered in 
these high-pitched Umbrian and Tuscan cities. In 
those dark days of internecine strife when Pisa, 
Florence, Perugia and Lucca, with countless smaller 
communities, incessantly warred upon each other, 
these flint-faced conduits constantly ran red with the 
noblest blood of Italy. Pent-up in these grim lanes 
and fighting massed, on foot, and for the most part, 
with cold steel, the slaughter was often terrible, and 
the bloody Vendettas of Guelfs and Ghibellines con¬ 
verted these silent, echo haunted thoroughfares into 
veritable shambles. With its infinity of dark arch- 


270 


Only Letters 

ways, of gloomy nooks and niches, and of the count¬ 
less little canons, dusky even at high noon, I never 
saw a town with such a perfect adaptation to the 
“battle, murder and sudden death” of the rubric 
from which we crave “ deliverance.” 

These homicidally favorable local features, may well 
account for the frequency with which the “ grim reck¬ 
oner ” overtook his debtors, yet booted and spurred 
Siena is remarkable for the number of its fine, well 
preserved and quite untampered with mediaeval build¬ 
ings and as the home of the dawnings of Italian 
pictorial art. The streets, like those of Perugia and 
Orvieto, are steep, narrow and winding and apart 
from the inevitable “ Via-Cavour,” where a few feeble 
shops add a tinge of life and color, are sad hued and 
sombre to a degree. 

The arms of Siena (and its cherished “ legs ”) are 
those respectively of the historic “ Twins ” and of their 
lupine foster-mother. All over the city, and fre¬ 
quently perched aloft upon a column, Romulus 
and Remus constantly appear as corroding, green- 
streaked couples, engaged in “keeping the wolf 
from their juvenile doors,” by the distinctly anom¬ 
alous patronage of a historically unlimited supply 
of the lacteal extract of that seemingly nutritious 
animal. The wolf seems to have been intimately as¬ 
sociated with Siena from an early period, and during 
their various mediaeval wars the rallying cry of the 
Sienese Ghibelline was ever Lupa! Lupa! I soon 
found my way to the little Instituto-delle Belli 
Arti, which is especially rich in the works of the 
earliest Italian masters, many of them still fast- 


Only Letters 271 

bound in the rigid fetters of the so-called Byzantine 
school. 

As the result of this Oriental servitide, here are 
many panel-pictures that while the conceded 
“groundwork’* of the later and glorious Italian art 
that we all enjoy, in view of their cadaverous visaged, 
seemingly metal sheathed strips of presumable 
humanity, might well have been its “ underground 
work.” “Cimabue,” i. e., (“ Chimmy-Buoy,” same 
“front-name,” precisely as brother “Fadden’s”), 
seems to have been the first to throw off in some 
small degree the form of art that previous to his time 
(he was born in 1240) universally prevailed. 

With those glorious old “first masters,” a “saint” 
was precisely such a figure as the Nuremberg con¬ 
ception of the entourage of “Noah” in the toy- 
arks of our childhood, passed through a wringer a 
few times, unshod, and made to rest his poor little 
undersized head upon a disc of sanctity as represented 
by a golden platter stood on edge. 

The gallery also contained many later works; some 
of them fine, and one that quite upset my previously 
conceived ideas of super-caloric temperatures. This 
was a representation of St. Anthony being “tempted ” 
by the “ nameless-One,” who eyed that record-break¬ 
ing “resister,” through large, steel-framed spectacles! 
I wondered if he could have worn them “At 
Home” ? As I strolled through the various rooms of 
the quaint little gallery I bethought me of the enor¬ 
mous debt of gratitude that is justly due our con¬ 
stantly encountered, red-robed, brother “ Baedeker” P 
Surely there never was such an horoscope as might 


272 Only Letters 

be cast from that beneficent constellation, under 
which is born an infinity of unsuspected apprecia¬ 
tion in the breast, peripatetic, viz., those eminently 
trustworthy “ bacili ” of ready-to-wear raptures, the 
double “asterisks " of that same Baedeker? 

On the topmost ridge of Siena’s threefold summit 
is perched the altogether unique Cathedral, which 
was, on the whole, quite a shock to me as I first saw 
it under the midday sun with its positively dazzling 
restored front, whereon brilliant modern mosaics, 
masses of gilding and an infinity of minute carving 
and detail, suggest rather the work of a confectioner 
than that of an architect. Then, too, its glaringly 
zebraic effect of horizontal stripes of black and white 
stone jarred on me with its suggestion of newness, 
after seeing so many cathedral exteriors where vari¬ 
ous mellow color-tones met and mingled in pleasant 
accord. While all excessively ornate, much of the in¬ 
terior is very fine, especially the famous pictorial floor, 
whereon a series of huge drawings of various subjects, 
sacred and profane, are carved in outline on the white 
marble, and the lines filled in with black stucco; some 
of these drawings are wonderfully fine. Around the 
nave runs a cornice composed of the heads of a long- 
series of Popes in terra cotta, high relief, and (I think,) 
low taste. The famous pulpit, a superb work of 
1260, and the Cathedral library with its no less 
famous frescoes by Pinturicchio, afforded me a deal 
of pleasure. The latter, i. e., the frescoes, are prac¬ 
tically an Italian rendering of Hogarth’s “Industrious 
Apprentice” scheme, showing how a worthy young 
man by “strict attention to business,” a well 


273 


Only Letters 

grounded theory, and perhaps a measurable practice 
of the “Cardinal Virtues," ultimately got the “job" 
of Pope. 

These paintings are wonderfully fresh and brilliant, 
by reason of their having been repainted in dry-colors 
over the original fresco, with the result that after 400 
years (and doubtless semi-occasional restorations), 
they are as fresh as if of yesterday. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Siena, April ijth , 1901. 

My dear M-: 

From the little Via-Cavour, curving so 
much that corners scarce exist, several narrow streets, 
terminating in flights of steps, time worn into shallow 
troughs, led down into the semicircular Piazza del 
Campo, with an exquisitely carved fountain in the 
centre of its cobble-paved expanse. The great 
square basins of this fountain are filled to the brim 
with bubbling, sparkling water, from a spring that 
through a subterranean conduit has supplied it since 
1344. At the foot of the depressed semicircle of the 
piazza and flanked by noble old buildings stands the 
Public Palace, a stately brick pile erected in 130^, 
with its fine, time-mellowed front yet untampered 
with, and enriched with examples of the quaint 
wrought ironwork for which the smiths of mediaeval 
Siena were famous. An especially fine presentation 
in bronze of the ubiquitous “ Madam Lupa" caps an 




274 Only Letters 

ancient column in front, and as a befitting adjunct to 
the charming facade, rises the slender, lofty and 
graceful Mangia tower, the top of which may be 
reached by 400 steps, and from which it is said (and 
not by me gainsaid), that the views obtainable are 
magnificent. 

As I have older grown, have gained in flesh, and 
alas! bidden adieu to redundant breath, I find myself 
increasingly disposed to take summits on “faith.” 
The eye is ever .an agile climber, the imagination 
often, an adept painter, and a properly indurated con¬ 
science may easily from their “joint ” earnings evolve 
a statement of personally had impressions that will 
usually pass unchallenged. 

Apropos of altitudes, did you when in Venice 
ascend the Campanile in thepiazetta ? I did, and was 
rewarded by a fine view, and with one remarkable 
and quite unexpected feature, to wit, a failure to de¬ 
tect any one of the numerous canals except the 
“Grand.” The old Public Palace has a suite of 
grand state-apartments covered with allegorical fres¬ 
coes of unusual interest and with several fine ex¬ 
amples of Sodoma, perhaps the greatest painter of 
the Sienese school, who for some time worked with 
Raphael at Rome, and who in several of his altar 
pieces in churches here, exhibits much of his mastery 
of color and execution, but which possess an inherent 
vigor and virility that Raphael's canvases often lack. 

In the piazza adjacent to the Public Palace, and 
scattered through the city, are many noble old build¬ 
ings for the most part massively built of gray lime¬ 
stone, often veritable fortresses, with their fronts en- 


Only Letters 275 

riched with armorial bearings carved in high relief, 
and with examples of the splendid wrought ironwork 
already noted. Some of these ancient facades have 
several rows of massive but graceful iron-brackets to 
hold banner-staffs on a gala day. These rows of 
brackets divide the space between the lower story, 
and the lofty and often massive cornice, while at the 
portals, beautifully wrought sockets to receive flam¬ 
beaux are of frequent recurrence. The front of one 
Palace was decorated with rows of half-figures of 
various animals, i. <?., the head and front legs stand¬ 
ing out from the wall perhaps fifteen inches, all of 
wrought iron, and in sooth, most cunningly fash¬ 
ioned, but with zoologic conceptions that would cer¬ 
tainly not find acceptance in these days. Siena is 
especially favored in the matter of fountains; not 
mere bits of decorative marble work, with more 
or less damp accessories, but great generous out¬ 
lets for the copious streams of delicious water (of 
water that carried me straight back to the forests of 
Maine) that fairly burst from these Tuscan hillsides. 
“Facile princeps”of these, the Fontebranda gushes 
out at the foot of the lofty hill, crowned by San 
Domenico, a great ugly barn of a church, unfinished 
without and incomplete within. This fountain is 
actually a broad, shallow well of exquisitely pellucid 
water, indeed, a lake in miniature. It was covered 
by a marble colonnade with three graceful arches in 
1242 and was, about the noon hour of a certain 
bright April day in 1901, supplied with a coping of 
laughing, gossiping, swarthy Sienese females. A 
cordon of washer-ladies was plying tongues and 


276 


Only Letters 

paddles with a unison of mirth and muscle that, as a 
spectacle, was highly entertaining. Of course, the 
trend of their chatter was quite lost upon me, but I 
could easily see the sore-sufferings of the raiment un¬ 
dergoing purification, and appreciate the perils of the 
buttons exposed to those lusty Latin “paddle- 
whacks.” As I chance to know, in the light of much 
experience had and paid for, from the Seine to the 
Neva under the castigations of the laundress, be she 
Frank, Latin, Slav, or of any other race or name, few 
buttons survive and with exceeding rarity—a button- 
whole! 

In several of the churches I visited the altar pieces 
(some by Sodoma) were framed with a pale brown, 
time-toned marble, exquisitely carved. These were 
marvels of design and execution in the delicate 
cameo-like perfection, in which foliage and flowers, 
cherubs and birds, were wrought into motifs that 
well merited hours of careful study, and which are 
regarded as the finest work of this character in Italy. 

.1 leave to-night for Florence, and whatever that fair 
city of the “ Lily,” may have in store for me (and for 
lo! these many years, I have kept “anticipation” on 
the frugal diet of “hope deferred”), these Sienese 
days have welded yet two more links to the chain of 
a delightful continuity that binds one to this fairest of 
fair lands. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Only Letters 


277 


Florence , April 21st, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

I took an afternoon train from Siena, foi 
this place and somewhere on the way was aroused 
from a doze by the sudden addition of five vociferous 
Englishwomen, each one bearing several of those 
sizeable bits of luggage wherewith so many of their 
race and sex foster the idea that they do not require 
a “box." The very considerable sum-total of these 
Anglican belongings, speedily transformed the had- 
been comfort of three drowsy men into a mere rem¬ 
iniscence, as this bustling British bevy, with many 
apologies proceeded to pile above, around and under 
us, a mass of stuff that a much too prevalent national 
thrift refuses to place in the luggage-van, where it 
belongs. 

I reached this delectable city at nightfall, and after 
fleeting glimpses of buildings long familiar, thanks to 
“Alinari,” and divers travelers' tales, was set down 
at the Pension P (actually an hotel), with a past his¬ 
toric, and a present delightful to the limited number 
it can house. The building was a fine mediaeval 
palace from which, however, numerous prosaic 
alterations required to fit it for its present use, have 
shorn away all but a few bits of ineffaceable pristine 
splendor. Inside, the floor levels and stairways have 
a variety and waywardness illustrative of the “ ups 
and downs ” of life, and in one or two rooms, notably 
in the delightful sanctum of the gracious Madam P, 
splendid groined arches springing from the once lofty 
ceiling, follow their graceful sweeps to the interposed 



278 Only Letters 

floor and pass through it to hide their stunted glories 
in some room below. In a dark corner of the once 
grand hall, the regulation “ lift ” slowly “elevates" 
one with the usual palsied tremulo and wheezing 
protest. 

Well, here I am at last, at the very Mecca of Italian 
art and quite as eager to “ kiss ” the “ black stone ” 
of its artistic sanctity as ever was turbaned Mussulman 
that sable-shrine of the prophet of Allah. Here be I, 
beside that bank-full stream of the wedded beauties 
of form and color, into which the smaller cities of 
this wonderful land have poured their choicest 
treasures for centuries. I am but a five minutes’ 
easy stroll from the Uffizi, a “ stone’s throw ” (and I 
no David), from the splendid Strozzi Palace, indeed, 
so compact and condensed is Florence, and for that 
matter most Italian cities, that ten or twenty minutes 
will take one to any of the chief sights, a most 
desirable feature this, for all, but a veritable god¬ 
send to those forced to “do” Italy with brevity, 
either solus, as a “raw ” tourist, or as an ingredient 
in a “ Cook’d-ragout.” I am lodged on the top 
floor, and am one of the “ attic salt ” of the ex-palace 
with one huge window, reaching from my chin to the 
lofty ceiling, commanding a superb view of the city 
and surrounding mountains and with acoustic prop¬ 
erties quite surpassing. Not fifty feet from that 
huge window is the belfry of an ancient church (St. 
Lapsus-Memoriae’s?) which appeals to the ear at times, 
and with a volume quite dispensable. In that vener¬ 
able tower there hang three especially sweet bells, 
but alas, they “ peal ” them at 5, 6, 7, 8 a. m. each 


279 


Only Letters 

and every morning, calling the faithful to mass and 
the drowsy to,—well!—not quite to thoughts of 
“ massacre," but to a vast willingness to forego their 
biddings so supremely sweet when heard betimes. 

I go to the Uffizi almost every morning for an hour 
or so, seldom more, and constantly there encounter a 
congestion of tourists that affords me a deal of quite 
unconscious entertainment. Yesterday I passed a 
group of three, a shrewd-faced man of fifty with his 
wife, and distinctly pretty daughter just as the girl 
said, “Pop! that’s a ‘ Rembrandt,’ he’s a very fa¬ 
mous artist, but real good judges say he usually 
makes his pictures ‘ too dark.’ " Later I met them be¬ 
fore an exceedingly lumpy and corrugated statue of 
Hercules leaning on his club which called forth,— 
“Mom! don’t he look 'real strong’?"—and, as a 
matter of fact,—he did. Of course, nothing could be 
more utterly trite or tiresome than for me to attempt 
to enlarge upon the incessantly described art treasures 
of the Uffizi and Pitti collections. Suffice it to say 
that sometimes as I loiter through those cabinets 
filled with the world-renowned masterpieces I have 
read of all my life, I find myself almost ready to re¬ 
gard my stroll as somnambulistic, and myself in a 
dream from which I may awaken, and those marvels 
vanish on the instant. 

I am greatly favored in having ample leisure in 
which to see the numerous (and for their satisfactory 
seeing), time-demanding collections of this art-sat¬ 
urated city, and according to my custom, have re¬ 
duced my visits to a system that yields the maximum 
of pleasure had without fatigue or satiety. 


280 


Only Letters 

After a morning hour or so in the Uffizi, Pitti or 
Belli Arte, I take a stroll across the river, through 
some of the smaller and least frequented streets, and 
perhaps drop into an obscure but usually interesting 
church, or often encounter some little bit of old 
Florence,—and then home for lunch. In the after¬ 
noon to one of the great churches, San Lorenzo, 
Santa Maria Novello, often to Santa Croce, the Italian 
Westminster Abbey (bar its figured horrors), with a 
lot of splendid historic monuments of which I never 
tire, or of its chapels in which as you know are some 
of Giotto’s finest frescoes. 

As in all foreign cities, the streets here are a per¬ 
petual pleasure to me, especially those of the older 
quarters although the march of improvement has 
of recent years wrought sad havoc in the purely pic¬ 
turesque phases of actual squalor and discomfort. 
This is notably illustrated in the sweeping out of ex¬ 
istence of the Mercatio-Vecchio, the ancient market¬ 
place, to furnish a superabundance of elbow-room in 
the new Piazza Vittoria Emanuele, for yet another 
bronze equestrian statue of that ugly, greatly-beloved, 
and profusely-mustached monarch. 

The wealth of art on every hand is positively 
amazing, museums, churches, palaces, simply over¬ 
flow with exquisite works in marble, bronze, terra¬ 
cotta, glass, mosaic, indeed in Florence, art is 
fluent in the tongue of every known medium of ex¬ 
pression. Especially do I delight in those charming 
terra-cottas of the Della Robbias, so constantly en¬ 
countered, now gleaming in some shabby old facade 
in a dirty little side street, now an enshrined Madonna 


Only Letters 281 

at a corner, while as for that delectable row of demi- 
draped, blue and white babies served on platters 
along the front of the Foundling Hospital, I con¬ 
stantly make long detours with the sole intent to pass 
them. Donatello is another fruitful source of pleasure 
and wonder, with an endless list of miracles wrought 
in bronze or marble, in either of which media he 
seems equally eloquent, with a delicacy of expression 
that while ever exquisite is never lacking in virility of 
treatment. In the artificial twilight of one small 
chapel, I saw as a continuous frieze around its lofty 
walls, a row of little cherubs, each with two pairs of 
wings, framing the sweetest of infantile faces, like a 
garland of fair-petaled, celestial daisies, and each 
with its plump little arm or leg by way of a stem 
symmetric. This frieze by Donatello, whose angels 
ever are as angelic as his cherubs, be cherubic and 
this without exception, means quite unearthly. 

As ever yours 

F. 


Florence , April 26th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Long ere this you must have had forced 
upon your recognition, how entirely the delights of 
this glorious old land in general, and of this “ fair 
lily of the Arno" in particular, have inoculated me? 

Each one of these wonderfully sequent blue and 
white and green spring days is a chalice, newly filled 
to its overflowing with some rare vintage of pleas- 




282 


Only Letters 

ure, and 1 saunter through these “vias” and “piaz¬ 
zas ” in a constant state of smoldering exultation and 
joyous absorption. 

Despite the recent civic destructions and alterations 
in various parts of older Florence, one constantly en¬ 
counters grim old palaces, sometimes on either side 
of a narrow street, often ’tis true, with their once 
lofty towers cut down to mere stumps but stately and 
imposing still. Back in the days when the feuds of 
local factions, or the stormy visitations of harrying 
neighbors guaranteed incessant strife, the various 
clans naturally dwelt together in the same quarter for 
mutual defense and protection. From the walls of 
some of these old fortress-palaces, facing each other 
on either side of a narrow street, massive stone cor¬ 
bels project, usually directly under the battlements. 
On these heavy planks were laid, and so a strong 
and serviceable bridge from house to house was im¬ 
provised, from which coign of vantage arquebussiers 
sent their bolts hurtling up or down the narrow way 
on massed Pisans and solid Sienese, or the luckless 
men of Lucca were greeted with showers of stones 
with caldrons of boiling oil or seething pitch and 
various other fluent expressions of a superstrenuous 
welcome. Often, especially during a night attack, 
heavy chains were stealthily stretched across from 
house to house, after which a sudden sortie was 
made, and with retreat effectually cut off by such 
chain-barriers, the question of the moment quickly 
narrowed down to the unpleasant alternatives of “do 
or die.” 

On the walls of various old buildings, at street 


Only Letters 283 

corners, in churches, on monuments, tombs and 
tapestries, in sooth everywhere, the arms of the great 
Medicis, those five red pills grouped around one pel¬ 
let azure, are in evidence and there seems to me to 
be a natural, or at least suggested connection between 
“Medici” and “pills”? of course, a purely verbal 
accident. 

Certainly Florence, and through her as almoner, all 
the world, owes much to their liberal patronage of 
the arts and letters and this, despite the conceded fact 
that some of that name were not in the strictest sense 
men of worth, while some certainly were consum¬ 
mate villains. Naturally with their great wealth they 
took up banking, and as you doubtless well remem¬ 
ber, a pendant “triumvirate” of those Medician 
“Pills” is the accredited origin of the symbol that 
has for centuries marked the establishment where the 
“sluggard” goes to the “uncle” rather than to 
“formica vulgaris” (as recommended by Soloman), 
when in urgent need of instant financial repairs. 
Apropos of pawn-shops, did you ever hear it claimed 
that a “lever watch ” was so called because you could 
“raise money ” with it ? 

I seldom leave my Palace-Pension, No. I, Via Tor- 
nabuoni, without passing the splendid Strozzi Palace 
at the next corner, finished in 1553, and perhaps the 
finest and best preserved of the great mediaeval Flor¬ 
entine houses. It is a huge pile of rough, hammer- 
dressed, gray stone with massive walls laid in bulging 
courses, pierced by quite insignificant windows and 
surmounted by a widely projecting cornice, the under 
side of which is most elaborately and beautifully 


284 Only Letters 

decorated. At each corner are those famous and 
familiar lanterns so constantly reproduced in minia¬ 
ture, as shining examples of Florentine metal work at 
its best. Great yawning archways once closed with 
tons of iron-braced and studded oak timbers, by way 
of gates, give access to the fine interior court. These 
ponderous gates have long since rusted fast on their 
hinges and are never closed, so that one may enter 
the spacious courtyard and measure its stately propor¬ 
tions without let or hindrance. In many of these in¬ 
terior courtyards are fine colonnades and statues, and 
in a few, the walls are decorated with the sculptured 
heraldic devices and armorial bearings of those who 
once ruled, or ruined here. Around the lower part of 
the Strozzi facade is a series of especially fine, 
wrought iron projecting brackets, each with a socket 
to receive a flambeau, and below that socket, a large 
ring to which was tied the horses of those being en¬ 
tertained within. Beneath these brackets, a low 
continuous stone bench running around the building 
formed a convenient lounging place for the pages, 
grooms and lackeys in waiting upon their noble mas¬ 
ters. One can almost see them now, under the fitful 
light of flaming torches in their gay parti-colored 
hose, their ruffs and slashed doublets, as they loll on 
these broad benches and wrangle over their dicing or 
lansquenet. 

I never pass that long, monotonous facade of the 
Pitti Palace, that supremely ugly chrysalis of incom¬ 
parable splendors, without thinking what a "title” 
were its, for a smallpox hospital,—the “ Pitti Palace," 
eh ? 


Only Letters 285 

My favorite bit of Florentine Mediaevalism as it well 
may be for there is nothing Finer in all Italy, is the 
famous Bargello built in 1255, for the Capitano-del- 
Popolo, ’twas a sort of police headquarters. Like 
most of the great houses of that era, this is a tower¬ 
ing mass of rough gray stone, but with beautifully 
fitted joints and with regularly crenellated battlements 
replacing the usual wide and often lavishly decorated 
cornice. Its severely plain front is decorated with 
rows of banner sockets and torch holders like those 
on the Strozzi, and nothing could be more truly ar¬ 
tistic than this decorative ironwork that is so entirely 
consonant with the grim walls upon which it is im¬ 
posed. Entering through the one-time lofty portal, 
now filled in and tamed down with glass doors of a 
distressing recentness, you first pass through two or 
three fine Gothic halls with a fair collection of arms 
and armor. I was especially interested in one group 
of early Italian swords, for the most part rapiers and 
small swords, superbly wrought alike in hilt, guard, 
pommel and grip, indeed, quite equal in their designs 
and execution to fine jew'elry, but with no trace of 
gold or jewels on them, all of exquisitely hand- 
chiseled steel. Some with blades full five feet long 
and tapering from half an inch of breadth to veritable 
needle points, like the sting of some vast and vicious 
hornet. Splendid tools these for use in the countless 
dark passages and Stygian archways that abounded 
in the Florence of their forging. One of these ex¬ 
quisite blades, by the sudden and silent addition of 
but a single, and it a tiny “ slash," to a brave doub¬ 
let, might in that doing, change the succession of a 


286 


Only Letters 

reigning house, or merely rid the world of one more 
blood-stained bravo. Passing through the armory 
another tall archway gives upon the world famous 
Cortile, and on the instant we are back in an Italy of 
the thirteenth century. I sat me down upon the 
richly carved well-curb in the centre of the courtyard 
beside which, the headsman’s block once levied a 
ghastly tribute from the noble tyrants of a bloody 
past. ’Twas high noon, and the sun was pouring its 
welcome rays full on my head, while across the 
mouth of the great shaft formed by four lofty encirc¬ 
ling walls, masses of fleecy clouds swept by and the 
many notchings of the battlements bore each its 
seeming tile of azure sky. Circling the spacious 
court and in the shadows of its graceful arcades, are 
many masterpieces of sculpture, but the wandering 
eye is soon led, a willing captive to the wonderful 
grouping of more than two hundred carved escutch¬ 
eons, armorial bearings and heraldic blazons with 
which two of the walls are fairly encrusted. These 
are of various colored marbles and stones, many of 
them beautifully wrought and all illustrating that 
peculiarly artistic mellowing, the super-exquisite fin¬ 
ish won from three, four or five Italian centuries. 
Here and there, among the somber grays and browns 
of stone, or marble blazonry, “ like a rich jewel in an 
Ethiop’s ear” shone forth a bit of the gleaming terra¬ 
cotta of a Della-Robbia, sharing its own and winning 
to itself yet added charms from the mere contrast of 
its sober setting. Completely sheltered from winds 
and rains, even delicate details of carving have sur¬ 
vived, and I doubt if there be a day the whole year 


Only Letters 287 

round when several artists are not reproducing the 
beautiful stairway guarded by the lion of Florence, 
the little triumphal arch that spans it and the two 
wall angles with their wealth of historic sculptures, 
i was exceeding loth to leave my sun-bathed view¬ 
point, and to turn away from such an unsullied bit of 
medievalism as the Cortile, but the Bargello of to-day 
is the “Cluny” of Italy, a National Museum with 
collections well worthy their noble housing. Climb¬ 
ing the stairway, and passing those “lions in the 
path,” unscathed, a graceful loggia gives access to a 
long series of cabinets, and I strolled for several hours 
through this world-renowned collection of art objects 
of every sort (save paintings), including bronzes by 
Donatello, terra-cottas by the Della-Robbias, and 
countless, not here to be catalogued marvels. 

But lunch impends now, so adieu for the time 
being. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


Florence , April 27th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

1 think I have already mentioned my 
habit of shunning galleries and collections after lunch, 
and of devoting the afternoons to famous churches ? 
Several of these I constantly revisit and never weary 
of, so lavishly rich are they in great works of art, and 
a few, unlike most of the churches further south, 
have glorious glass of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 



288 


Only Letters 

turies, glass that glows like encrusted jewels, and at 
times fairly splashes cold gray walls, solemn monu¬ 
ments and shadowy chapels, with great gouts of 
parti-colored glory. Cloisters, (the very word 
“ Cloister ” is the exact equivalent of “ picturesque” 
here) abound in Florence, and I, ever abounding in 
them, am often so fortunate as to have one all to my¬ 
self, to wander around its silent corridors, try to 
decipher under the prevailing skull and crossed bones 
the countless “ Hic-Jacets,” and other “lies” mortu¬ 
ary, tacked to the titles of long since departed Floren¬ 
tines, or simply to stroll along and look out through 
slender and often exquisitely wrought single or 
clustered columns on little patches of green and sun¬ 
shine and to be courteously greeted by a passing 
priest or some cowled monk, shuffling by in bared 
feet and flapping sandals. 

At San Lorenzo, with its marvelous chapel of un¬ 
finished tombs by Michael Angelo, the famous church 
of the mighty Medicis, of Cosimo the circumspect, of 
Piero the potential and of Lorenzo the magnificent, 
great if not godly churchmen they, the monks at 
noon each day, distribute a dole of food to stray 
homeless cats, i. e. (to such as knowing not the 
“ hearth ”) may wander “ cloisterward.” This is an 
ancient, feline-fostering foundation, and I arrived 
one day (shortly after “cat-sup”), to find fifteen or 
twenty of the most woebegone “Toms” and melan¬ 
choly Marias basking in the sun on the plot of grass, 
poor, mangy “ Lazarine ” creatures, truly a woeful 
showing of feline infelicities. Their almoner, a sleek 
and rosy monk in his coarse brown robe, girt round 


Only Letters 289 

with a generous length of rope girdle, certainly con¬ 
trasted sharply with his pensioners. One of his 
brethren, and a splendid man was he, told me that 
he had not so much as tasted flesh for thirty-five 
years. 

I was resting on a bench in the ancient church of 
the Ognissanti a day or two since, to enjoy a fine 
altar piece, when chancing to look down I read in 
quaint brass letters on a small circular stone, directly 
at my feet, “ S, Amerigo Vespuccio.” It was the 
tomb of him who wrested from one Cristoforo 
Colombo the honor of naming the all-around best bit 
of this green earth. While not a few claim that 
“Am-Ves” was its actual discoverer, a matter of 
seventy odd millions of us agree in feeling precious 
glad that they found it between them, somehow. 

You can have no adequate idea how steadfastly 1 
put from me in my every letter the recording of 
countless impressions daily gathered from this fair 
city, so saturated with art in every form, but why 
should I bore an absolutely unoffending man across 
three thousand miles of brine ? Nevertheless with 
such an host of the very greatest existent art works 
as are gathered here to keep the “ wrappings ” on 
one’s raptures constantly intact, is in sooth no small 
self-denial. 

Fra Angelico greatly interests me with his seraphic 
hosts sometimes of an hundred sweet-faced angels, 
offering instrumental adoration. On every face is 
clearly writ an evident determination to make just 
the very best music within the compass of pre¬ 
sumably transcendent powers. Even those with 


290 


Only Letters 

drums give unmistakable evidence of their desire to 
extract from that mundane purveyor of scant melody 
a “ rat-tat-tat,” unearthly, but beside the harpers and 
trumpeters, drummers-angelic do seem sadly handi¬ 
capped. 

One of my favorite strolls is across the picturesque 
Ponte Vecchio, thereon to loiter and study the trashy 
little jewelry shops and the various collections of 
frankly “ bogus ” antiquities—bar one or two, where 
really fine things may be had at figures fabulous. 
Thence down some one of the narrow streets across 
the Arno, recrossing by a lower bridge and coming 
out by devious wanderings into the piazza by the 
Cathedral and Giotto’s Campanile. 

These famous buildings do not appeal to me as 
strongly as they do to many, the modern facade of 
the former being so insistently new and glaring and 
the Campanile, while in its proportions, decorative 
sculptures and architectural details exquisite, loses 
vastly in the impressiveness that is justly its due by 
reason of its bizarre coloring, to my thinking, highly 
suggestive of a tower of toilet soaps. I nevertheless 
climbed to its top and was rewarded by a superb 
view of Florence and its surroundings and by the 
obvious dissatisfaction of a pair of lovers (English 
ones I think), who did not seem to regard me as a 
“ long felt want.” 

What a downright nuisance the middle-class Ger¬ 
man tourist can be, nay constantly is. 

I went yesterday morning to the little chapel of 
Sancta Maria Maddalena de Pazzi to see perhaps the 
finest existing single work of my favorite Perugino, 


Only Letters 291 

a sublime fresco of the Crucifixion scene on Calvary. 
I found, sitting in front of it, three Englishwomen, 
and after dropping quietly into a vacant chair, we 
four sat in an almost breathless silence for perhaps 
twenty minutes quite absorbed in the study of this 
amazing creation. Then the bell jangled, and the 
custodian turned into the little chapel five Germans, 
three males and two females who instantly began 
walking to and fro between us and the picture, 
talking loudly all the time and pointing with canes 
and umbrellas to what each regarded as worthy of 
remark. Of course, we all rose and retired, leaving 
this mob in boisterous possession,—such episodes as 
this are of frequent recurrence. 

On several afternoons I have climbed to the upper 
level of the Boboli gardens, a combination of public 
park, and royal demesne directly behind the Pitti 
Palace, on the whole a rather tawdry pleasure 
ground, and chiefly remarkable for its series of paths 
on either side of which rise towering walls of ilex, 
almost as dense and continuous as if of masonry. 
From these heights the view of Florence as evening 
approaches is superb. 

Across the narrow Arno, the Duomo with its vast 
dome, the Baptistry, and the Campanile which at this 
distance losing its bizarre color tones, is a veritable 
dream of beauty. Beyond them on every side rise 
towers and domes of various churches with the well- 
known battlemented tower of the Palazzo Vecchio 
looming above all, while in the purple distance a 
glimpse of Etruscan Fieosole on its mountain-top is 
had, and of San Miniato gleaming white upon the 


292 


Only Letters 

hill behind. From early dusk until the sun has quite 
disappeared, this view is one of surpassing loveliness 
and it abundantly well repays the long and somewhat 
tedious climb demanded by its enjoyment. 

The amount of spare time these Florentines seem 
to have on “ their hands ” (bare and gloved alike), is 
remarkable. Go when you will during the day to 
any of the chief piazzas, notably to the Della Signoria, 
and especially in front of the Palazzo Vecchio or the 
Loggia de Lanzi, and you will never fail of finding a 
throng of men, loitering there by the hour in de¬ 
tached groups of from three to a dozen. Usually in 
earnest conversation and often gesticulating violently, 
these men are “draped ” (they actually are “draped,” 
not merely clad), in a long, blue, black or brown 
cloak of the “ lurking assassin, cut” with a corner of 
its flowing skirt thrown deftly over the shoulder and 
so disposed as to show a bit of its vivid green lining. 
A soft conical hat, sun-toned to some pleasing neutral 
hue, crowns an often handsome head and from under 
that hat brim, at least from that of the stolid listener 
awaiting to launch his fervid rejoinder, there slowly 
rises the blue smoke and raucous fumes of one of 
those vile, home-made, “rat-tail” cigars, that are as 
much a part of Italy as fleas or felicity. 

In the Via Tornabuoni, i. e., the “swell” street 
where our “palace” is situate, most of the fashion¬ 
able clubs are quartered, all on the second floors 
above the few fine shops, and here a distinct nui¬ 
sance seems to be accepted as a matter of course. 
From 10 a. m. until dark the quite too narrow side¬ 
walk is decorated or disfigured, bordered or blocked, 


293 


Only Letters 

by lines and groups of swell “club-men" in soft 
raiment redolent of Lubin, usually in white “kids," 
and wearing cravats; well you certainly never saw 
such “reverberating hues," and each “sporting" a 
silver or gold headed cane. Of course the military 
element is not lacking, it never is where there is a 
“ standing" army, so here a large proportion of these 
animated obstructions who do nothing but “stand " 
and stare at the passing, or would like to pass, female 
pedestrian, is made up of officers, old, young, and 
“mediaeval” in all the bravery of faultlessly fitting 
“togs," gold and silver lace, glittering boots and 
sabres, that seem to clank automatically. I quite fail 
to see how these young officers can manage to keep 
themselves so immaculate, and at the same time to 
distend that fine plumage with a sufficient substratum 
of food on but twenty or thirty dollars per month. 
Any sort of a “ Dago " bootblack in our large cities 
would “ turn up his nose " at the pay of a full captain 
of cavalry in the army of his King, and he perhaps a 
nobleman at that, but economy is understood and 
practiced here with a rigor, continuity and thorough¬ 
ness not so much as dreamed of, in our dear land of 
marvelous abundance, and of amazing wastefulness. 

It grows late and I drowsy, after a full day, so 
adieu until I next write. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


294 


Only Letters 


Paris, May yth, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Since my last from Florence, I took a 
run of a single day over to Pisa; quite too short a 
time to see even its conveniently congested beauties, 
as they richly merit. 

I climbed the famous and truly wonderful Leaning 
Tower, a somewhat risky and quite unpleasant ex¬ 
perience, as I found its inclination highly conducive 
to my dropping off on its low side,—of course, quite 
contrary to mine. 

I had a most enjoyable hour in the noble Cathe¬ 
dral; thence to the famous Baptistry, ending with 
the weird and romantic Campo-Santo with the long 
walls of its graceful cloisters, portraying in dim 
frescoes a deal that in the doing must have been ex¬ 
ceeding unpleasant to all concerned. Some of these 
pictures recall the fascinating horrors of St. Stephano 
Rotondo at Rome, with its time bleached circuit of 
the blood dripping martyrs of a shocking realism. 
Back to Florence the same evening, reluctantly leaving 
unseen several fine churches, and on the 2d I set out 
for Paris direct, via Milan and the St. Gothard, a long 
and tedious run somewhat ameliorated however by 
the company of three Yankee girls, en route for 
the great city, to study music, all three merry and 
one exceeding bright. Arrived at Paris, 1 found the 
family in our peaceful old quarters with the inevitable 
shopping, an accomplished fact, and now on London 
bent, for which concentrated universe we set out to¬ 
morrow. Leaving the trio totally oblivious to all 



295 


Only Letters 

else; in the absorbing labors of packing, at which 
time the space required by an unoccupied male is 
much more highly prized than his society, I strolled 
up the Champs-Elysees under those superb horse- 
chestnuts now in all the glory of their snowy 
pyramids of bloom, to the Salon. This season con¬ 
jointly with the exhibit of the Artists’ Society, it fills 
the vast Art Palace built last year as a permanent 
memorial of the great exhibition. It is a magnificent 
illustration of what ample, undiverted money and art 
divorced from “ ring” politics can do for the delight 
of those who cheerfully furnish that money. The 
showing was enormous, hundreds of statues and 
casts, thousands of canvases, with other thousands 
of pastels, aquarelles and drawings, much pottery, 
some furniture, and a little wonderful jewelry, made 
up an exhibition demanding for its superficial seeing 
quite five times the four hours I gave it. So recently 
come from the superb antiques of Rome and Flor¬ 
ence, the host of snowy “ Nus” that here insistently 
substitute the obviously naked for the chastely nude 
was soon disposed of, and I turned me to the pic¬ 
tures. Here the showing was wonderful, some 
things of course frankly shocking, others revolting 
from the bloody realism with which certain modern 
French pallets fairly drip in their determination to 
reach the summit of Gallic ambition—a “sensation.” 
Many of the portraits were marvelous, and there 
were actual acres of delightful land and water 
“scapes,” genre, etc., along with those inevitable 
huge historic canvases, in which splendid execution 
and profound knowledge of detail and circumstance. 


296 Only Letters 

challenge admiration for these “ Albino-Elephantine ” 
productions, demanding a prince for a patron, and a 
palace for their housing. Alas! that a portable “ bit” 
of even dubious propriety should be so much the 
more readily set to “ pot boiling.” Trying to even 
“do” such a vast mass in my preposterous time 
limit (“seeing,” of course, was quite out of the ques¬ 
tion), was simply bidding for mental dyspepsia, so 1 
cut out many of the sixty odd rooms, and gat me 
down to the basement; to such “small deer” as the 
black-and-whites, posters, caricatures, etc. There I 
found a huge collection of “cuts” at once “rare” 
and “well done,” a wonderful gathering of clever 
“bits,” among them originals of illustrations made 
for Paris comic papers; many of these were irresist¬ 
ibly funny, but of course not a few going to too great 
“ lengths ” in their “ breadth ” to harmonize with (at 
least presumable) Anglo-Saxon ideas of symmetrical 
fitness. I wonder if the art editors of one or two of 
these papers ever reject any illustrations offered them, 
as even “ 288,” for their clientele ?—I am tempted to 
doubt it. 

Quite “done up,” I drove slowly home at early 
dusk down that peerless avenue, heavy with the 
mingled perfumes of horse-chestnut and horseless- 
vehicle, of which dozens thundered by with their 
raucous horns, transmitting a fetid legacy of gasolene 
fumes. Paris certainly is looking its “best” now, 
the shops in “fine fettle” with charming things, 
and the streets full of those (from a shopkeeper’s 
standpoint) “ Heaven sent ” Americans, looking their 
best, which when it happens to be America’s “ best” 


Only Letters 297 

that is doing that “looking ” is a lot better than any 
one else’s best. 

It grows warmer rapidly, and as we hear of 
weather, positively oppressive in London, I must there 
interview some “ ninth of a man ” for lighter raiment 
anon. 

Incessant travel tells terribly on one’s apparel, and 
I now find myself (in broad daylight), looking like a 
“knight in armor” by reason of the positive gleam 
of my drapery—of course this is but a superficial 
hint at the internal “polish” one takes on from 
travel. 

I must drop this now and pack my stuff against an 
early flitting Londonward to-morrow morning. The 
only sight-seeing I have done here this time (bar the 
Salon), was a brief visit to that stately basement-hall 
where is enthroned what is to me the one most 
beautiful thing in the whole realm of such art as I 
have seen—Her Grace of “ Milo.” 

But now I must indeed stop, for here’s Henri, and 
that means dinner, and at the “ Empire,” a marvel¬ 
ously good one, and in very sooth, I’m in a dining 
mood, and for “Henri” by a clear majority. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


London, May 8th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

We left Paris early on the 6th, and 
crossed the dreaded channel on a gray day over a 




298 Only Letters 

placid sea which was, however, quite equal to cover¬ 
ing the cabin floors and seats, with mal-de-mer-maids 
in various phases of active and passive woe. We 
found this ever beautiful land, “all decked in living 
green,” with the sloping railway embankments, 
thickly starred with primroses, and all over the flat 
country, with the usual and appropriate friskings 
around their sedate mamas were thousands of 
“Chops” “presumptive,” little dreaming, poor in¬ 
nocent lambs, of impending mutto-cide and sequent 
“Grills.” 

After a couple of hours, the charming rural ele¬ 
ments lapse into the incipient suburban grime, and 
we run into that vast compressed Christendom, load 
our ten trunks on a “Cook-bus” and set out from 
Charing Cross, to discover how exceeding many 
abiding-places felt complete without us. After much 
driving to and fro we finally induce one “ Cox” of 
Jermyn Street to lodge us for twenty-four hours, 
only. Next day we secured lodgings close by, also 
in Jermyn Street where we are now settled until we 
decide upon what we wish to do, and where, a ques¬ 
tion not without its complications. Coming so re¬ 
cently from the bright sunshine of Italy, I feel a sense 
of depression under the never absent bronze pall of 
the London smoke, but this is the “season” when 
the grimy gloom of grand houses is brightened with 
flowers, and between the constantly recurring though 
brief showers the west-end parks are charming 
places for strolls, or in which to sit and simulate 
reading as one watches the unfailing crowds inces¬ 
santly streaming by. 


Only Letters 299 

The other day our mutual friend, C., asked an old 
M. F. H., how the sport had been last season and re¬ 
ceived this typical reply, “ Well—you see—sir, what 
with the ’ard frosts and ’Er Majesty, there ’arn’t been 
no ’untin’ to mention, sir! ” Thanks to that same most 
kindly C., E. and I were bidden to a grand dinner at 
the Metropole, given by the Nonconformists’ Union¬ 
ist Association, a religo-political club composed of 
dissenters from the church, and, I fancy, largely from 
the State, and with a leaning toward disapproval in 
general. Lord Salisbury spoke well, and His Grace 
of Devonshire (both K. G.’s and wearing their stars 
and ribbons), also spoke. The Premier left many 
vitally important things most cleverly unsaid, after a 
fashion that seemed to please the heterogeneous ele¬ 
ments to whom he spoke, but the other “big man " 
was downright and doubtless ducally-dull. 

Yesterday, to the Spring Exhibition in Burlington 
House a fine showing alike of canvases and people, 
several great portraits by Sargent, easily the chief at¬ 
traction and lavishly praised. A most agreeable man 
there “ fell " into conversation with me. After sev¬ 
eral “bad falls" by me, had, long since, I never make 
advances to anything well-dressed over here, but I 
have discovered that a suppressed “ seediness " and 
an available civility “train together" as a rule. He 
said, “we all consider Sargent" far and away our 
best man, and he’s an American you knowl 

After the custom of various former visits I fre¬ 
quently drop into the National Gallery which is, as 
you well know, so admirably arranged and so pre¬ 
eminently accessible, indeed, I think it the best ar- 


300 


Only Letters 

ranged of any gallery I have ever seen, and a noble, 
comprehensive and entirely satisfactory collection, 
alas, that so many of its pictures should be covered 
with glass to their worst possible showing. 

1 also make frequent visits to the Abbey, usually 
dropping in twice or thrice a week and always at 
three on Sunday afternoon, with the reasonable cer¬ 
tainty of an interesting, and often eloquent address 
from some canon “of good report.” I always try 
for a seat at the junction of the nave and choir, and 
so gain an unbroken view of their dual splendors 
with the afternoon sun pouring through the great rose 
windows, and warming up with color, alike the noble 
architecture and those stone records of mortal great¬ 
ness and would-be immortal vanity, meeting at the 
tomb. These long rows of preposterous effigies that 
mince, strut, or caper to their presumable rewards, 
suggest to me a conspiracy of sculptors to “syndi¬ 
cate ” absurdity and so render death ridiculous! 

I am again enjoying an architectural change, such 
as I did in Vienna, after our Russian experiences, and 
after weeks of Italian basilicas, with flat and usually 
excessively ornate roofs, it is delightful to once more 
follow the graceful Gothic lines from the base of the 
stately clustered columns to their culmination at the 
roof tree, and I easily rise above these earth-bound 
marble monuments, to wander eye-free through the 
upper realms of this glorious temple. I had not so 
much as set foot inside of that “ Omnium gatherum,” 
the British Museum for nearly thirty years, and I am 
now enjoying its superb collections on the piece¬ 
meal or instalment plan, i. e., by making trifling in- 


301 


Only Letters 

vestments of time and of my powers inquisitional, at 
short intervals, and I so receive a deal of pleasure 
from its vast accumulations of every character. In 
the Egyptian mummy room, I yesterday encountered 
this episode. I was looking at a detached, mummified 
arm shown by itself, with a large gold scarab signet 
ring on one of the shriveled black fingers of some 
one-time great lady, when a clear and not unpleasant 
voice at my elbow unburdened itself, as follows: 
“ Pooah! deah! of course that ring could never have 
been hers, you know!" The speaker was an ele¬ 
gantly-dressed woman of possibly sixty, who was 
gazing intently through her gold lorgnon at this shred 
of a “poor dear,” deceased 2600 b. c. The remark 
was made in all seriousness to a man who seemed 
quite content with her flat repudiation of the label, 
descriptive of this remarkable find. 

Last Sunday morning I renewed another delightful 
recollection of ’73, by turning in through the grimy 
passage under the smoke-stained lamb crowned 
with an aureole and bearing the banner of the Holy 
Cross, on the keystone of the arch leading to the 
Church of the Inner Temple which, of course, you 
well recall. The group of brazen knights “whose 
bones ” are dust and whose good swords rust, but 
whose “ souls are with the saints, we trust,” still lay 
in the vestibule in their symbolic and sanctified atti¬ 
tudes of impossible repose. Not so the choir of rosy- 
cheeked boys, who on a sultry July morning of that 
same ’73, filled the old fane with music of a sweet¬ 
ness I never heard equaled until last winter, when in 
St. Petersburg precisely such another lot of little 


302 


Only Letters 

bright-eyed Slavs swept the great aisles of St. Isaac's 
with just such another flood of ravishing sweetness. 
I looked at the line of solemn, bearded, surpliced 
men, who stood behind another lot of sweet-voiced 
little chaps, and wondered if any of them were of the 
“ tenor and date ” of 73 ? I love the old church with 
its beautiful polished granite, clustered columns, and 
the fine old glass rich enough even to levy tribute in 
color from the anemic London sun, and to emphasize 
the maze of branching lines that form the groinings 
of the many arches, it was indeed a delightful re¬ 
newal of my first visit to this famous shrine of the 
Knights Templar. 

After church a stroll up to Hyde Park Corner and 
seats under a noble tree is a remunerative experience. 
What a splendid lot the young Englishmen are to be 
sure, and how beautiful some of the girls really are, 
despite their so often self-imposed handicaps of 
shocking garments and colors. 

Has the title for the new king, as suggested by 
some “ Boulevardier,” reached you yet, I wonder? 
i. e ., “Edward the Caressor”? not so utterly ill- 
fitting peradventure, in view of his “ three feather ” 
record. 'Tis strange to walk these streets and note 
the inroads being made by American wares, notably 
hats and shoes. In Oxford and many other streets, 
shops abound with “Old Glory” pasted up in the 
bulk windows above flaming announcements of the 
very latest shapes in “American shoes for Men and 
Women,” etc., etc. I saw in Regent Street, on a 
new and gorgeously gilded sign, “Sole London 
Agent for Knox’s Famous American Hats.” This 


303 


Only Letters 

means exceeding much, in the light of the homage, 
almost on “ Gessler " lines, so long paid to British 
headgear. Our extra-light weight “Bowlers," i. e., 
Derbys, are now “ catching on " here wonderfully. 

As I am now on ground that you yourself very 
well know I do not propose to enlarge to any serious 
extent on London, but merely to chronicle occasional 
“ doings ” and a few personal impressions had. 

Are not English tradesmen’s signs droll? Of 
course, you remember that perfectly sedate concern 
in the real estate line, Giddy & Giddy ? I stumbled 
on Tidy & Tidy on Sackville Street, and Wm. Blount, 
“ Housebreaker," not late of the Richard Turpin and 
John Shepard Co., Limited, but a strictly honest 
“dismantles" who deals in disintegrated architecture. 
Two more signs unusual, “Clocks wound by con¬ 
tract" and “Pure milk, humanized for infants," 
think you this might be the lacteal extract of “ human 
kindness," “sterilized"? 

Did you ever hear of the old lady who went to a 
bird-fancier for a parrot, and who having found one 
that pleased her, said, “ My good man, does this bird 
swear?" to which the man made answer, “Well— 
no, mum, I carn’t say as ‘e do, but if you’ll stand an 
hextry two bob, 1 can let you 'ave a main fine 
‘ curser,' mum!" 

To the banker’s now, so an end to this. 

As ever yours, 


F. 


304 


Only Letters 


London, May 18th, igoi . 

My dear M-: 

There is a great gathering, or better a 
small gathering of great Spanish pictures in the 
Guildhall, a dozen splendid Velasquez, more of For¬ 
tuny’s than I ever saw together before, and a lot of 
delectable landscapes by names unknown to me, but 
unquestionably not so, to fame. This is one of those 
splendid loan collections of such constant recurrence 
here whereby priceless treasures are freely thrown 
open to the London public and liberally patronized by 
all classes. 

Did you ever go out to Dulwich (it occurs to me 
you spoke of it ?) with its gallery for the most part 
filled by two artists I care little for, viz. “after” and 
“school of.” We found Dulwich art a bit “dull” 
to be sure, but Dulwich nature, bewitching, in 
a stroll along a road lined with splendid horse-chest¬ 
nuts abloom with hawthorne hedges snowy all, and 
the lilacs (like fine London dames), now all clad in 
purple. 

A blue sky piled full of fleecy clouds and larks 
soaring and singing from the grass lands on either 
side, it was a delight to see and hear, to smell and 
feel, such a fair bit of this supremely fair land, after 
the grime and smoke of the great city so close at 
hand. 

Apropos of ruralities, what a noble provision is 
made and maintained for the city penned ones, in the 
group of vast parks with their miles of green turf to 
be strolled over at will, and their magnificent trees, 



305 


Only Letters 

covering hundreds of acres of enormous value and 
they right in the very heart of the greatest city on 
earth. 

In the Abbey yesterday I noticed some letters 
rudely cut on the time blackened back of the historic 
coronation chair. Upon asking a pleasant young fel¬ 
low, a sort of clerical “artilleryman” who I have 
noticed on Sundays escorting various “ canons ” to 
their proper “embrasures,” what it was, he “un¬ 
folded ” for me the following tale. Somewhere about 
1800, a lot of schoolboys were “doing” the Abbey 
(in those days tourists were not “herded” and visit¬ 
ors roamed at will), and one of them wagered that 
he would sleep in the minster all night. Accord¬ 
ingly he hid himself in some corner when the doors 
were locked for the night and then selected this 
famous chair as the most satisfactory resting-place. 
As soon as it was light next morning, he recorded 
his prank with a jack-knife as follows: “J. Abbott, 
slept in this chair all night.” My chronicler could 
not tell whether or not “J. A.” was overtaken by a 
temporary distaste for all chairs, but certain it is that 
such a sequel would have been consonant with the 
“birching” practices of the English school of that era. 

After much hunting and a consequent extended ac¬ 
quaintance with extortionate undesirabilities, we have 
now moved into new quarters in the extreme West 
End, on a street facing old Kensington Park, and find 
it delightful to be on the verge of that venerable 
pleasaunce. For the quiet digestion of a book or 
paper, nothing can exceed a bench under one of its 
splendid trees on one of the minor walks. 


306 Only Letters 

Did you ever notice how curiously the various 
trades are mixed up in London, even in the most 
fashionable streets ? Old Bond Street for example, 
where I presume more costly things are on sale than 
in any other one street the world over. Here the 
“rash,"with twenty thousand pounds, can buy a 
superb tiara of diamonds in one of the shops. For 
the “rasher,” great sides of prime old York mild 
cured bacon are on view in the next shop, while per¬ 
haps in the third window the “rashest” will find 
everything required for the “turf,” and the ruin so 
often overtaken by persistently cultivating the su¬ 
preme efforts of horse-flesh in the pursuit of gain. 
Of course, this jumbling together of trades is the 
natural outcome of age, the gradual betterments of 
neighborhoods, the English custom of sticking to 
“old stands "and the handing down of callings from 
father to son for generations. 

A few doors from us on Jermyn Street, was a shop 
that never failed to capture my eye, and have me halt 
for a moment when passing. It was a fishmonger’s 
stall, and each morning that monger first spread upon 
a long white marble slab a thick layer of newly cut 
clover, and then on that most appropriate back¬ 
ground spread great gleaming ingots of Tweed sal¬ 
mon, twenty, twenty-five, thirty pounders, with deep 
purple backs and broad sides that fairly glitter; 'twas 
a sight no angler could forego. 

Quite a military function “on” Friday last when 
the King presented new colors to the Scot Guards, 
who afterward “trooped the colors "before His Majesty 
and staff. The function came off at the Horse 


307 


Only Letters 

Guards’ parade, whither I gat me down betimes and 
took my stand in a rapidly growing crowd. There 
was quite a fine turnout of troops including two 
squadrons of the very “swell” and showy Horse 
Guards, “red” with six of the crack bands. The 
King and a brilliant staff, including Lord “ Bobs,” ap¬ 
peared at 10:30, he in the uniform of the “Scots,” 
i. e., bearskin shako, red coat, black trousers, and of 
course, covered with orders. 

The Seventh Edward certainly fills his clothes ex¬ 
ceeding full, is very short, of great beam, and a long 
way “this side” of an impressive figure on horse¬ 
back. He rode close by me twice, on a splendid sor¬ 
rel, and I was struck with his great resemblance to 
his mother. 

On Whit-Monday, the English equivalent of our 
July 4th, when London pours out its pleasure-seeking 
millions, we all went off on a delightful excursion 
with those most kindly and hospitably active C.’s. 
We took an early train from Charing Cross for Seven 
Oaks, about twenty miles out which we did in two 
hours with only eighteen in our carriage in place of 
the normal eight. Leaving with intense joy that 
stuffed train, we took carriages and drove through a 
constant succession of beauties such as no other land 
can boast, with views across the Kentish Weald, a 
long oval valley which suggests that famous Catskili 
panorama somewhat reduced in the matter of altitude. 
We halted for lunch at the Royal h’ Oak, a quaint lit¬ 
tle inn on the high street of an equally quaint little 
village now a mass of bloom, lilacs, wisteria and 
hawthorns, both white and pink, horse-chestnuts, 


308 Only Letters 

daisies, etc., while from all the grass fields and 
meadow-lands, those little quivering dots of skylarks 
were floating aloft, and filling the upper air with 
their sweet plaintive notes. Lunch despatched, we 
took a winding footpath through a noble park under 
the wide-spread boughs of giant oaks and beeches to 
Knole House the seat of Lord Sackville, one of the 
noblest baronial mansions in England, a bit of it (“a 
very small one"), dating back to the days of King 
John—“ will-you-be-good,” but most of it of the time 
of James ist and Charles ist. Since which time it 
has been added to at intervals after a manner that un¬ 
like many such periodic accretions has not marred its 
dignity or resulted in any serious architectural inco¬ 
herence, it now has no less than ten distinct courts. 
We were shown through the rambling suite of State 
apartments, rich in family relics, and with many an¬ 
cestral portraits, by Holbein, Lely, Van Dyck and 
Reynolds, by the housekeeper, a stately and really 
handsome bit of self-satisfied ignorance, who studi¬ 
ously refrained from any communications of interest 
to offset a very stiff per capita fee paid in advance. 

After seeing the house, we wandered off into the 
park, for the day thrown open to picnics, several of 
which were in boisterous evidence. We found a 
quiet spot far from the “ madding crowd," in a grove 
of the magnificent trees already mentioned, bestow¬ 
ing ourselves on the velvet turf to watch the various 
yokel games, and incidentally, some homespun love- 
making. We set our faces Londonward betimes, to 
shun the ebb of that tremendous tide with which we 
had drifted out in the morning, and this sagacity bore 


309 


Only Letters 

fruit in the fact that on our ride back to the city we 
had but seventeen people crammed into our carriage 
in place of the eighteen of our outbound ride. 

I lunched with C. last week at his club, the Consti¬ 
tutional, where he, a member for years told me he 
hardly knew any one, as no member ever speaks to 
another without a formal introduction, as he easily 
learned after a quite uncalled-for “snub” or two, as 
good a fellow as is “C.,”must have encountered 
curs indeed. 

Apropos of “coolnesses,” they are now bringing 
shiploads of soles from New Zealand, and selling 
them at Billingsgate frozen so hard that they rattle 
like tiles and it takes an hour to thaw them out to 
make fresh-caught “Medways”of them and to fit 
them for the pan. This “ingathering” seems like a 
practical return for the labors of a long line of de¬ 
voted missionaries who opened up that distant field 
—and of whom, alas! some were “accepted” in ad¬ 
vance of their precepts. 

As ever yours, 

F. 


London, June 6th, 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Quite a long interval since I last wrote, 
but for the most part devoted to such “stock” sights 
as you are entirely familiar with. As a result of a 
recent caucus, we have decided to return home on 
the 28th, and have been so fortunate as to secure pas- 




3 io 


Only Letters 

sage on the Deutschland , a splendid ship as we chance 
to know from having gone over her the day we sailed 
in July of last year. 

For the first time in my several stops in London, 1 
have found time to see some of the “ crack " county 
teams at “Lords,” especially Yorkshire vs. Middle¬ 
sex, and Marylebone CC vs. South Africa. In the 
latter, W. G. Grace played, and I was surprised to 
see how he had aged since I saw him in the States,— 
was it in ’77 or ’78 ? Always heavy, he has put on a 
deal of flesh and with a long white beard, looks 
vastly older than he actually is—they told me fifty- 
two. His runs are now mere “shuffles,” but he hits 
as freely as ever, scoring on “boundaries,” or tak¬ 
ing but a single out of an easy three. I also saw him 
put on to bowl “slows,” for a change, with that 
same old “back break” from either side that was as 
deadly as of yore. It simply paralyzed the bunch of 
fine young chaps from the Cape who had been pun¬ 
ishing the fast bowlers severely. Until the “old 
man’s ” breath gave out, he fairly slaughtered them. 
Grace seems more like seventy than fifty-two, is very 
domineering, and certainly “lords” it over “Lords.” 
It was at once amusing and disgusting to see the 
cringing deference paid to him. Yorkshire put up a 
great game, the first two wickets falling for sixteen, 
and the third for 236. “ Ranji ” batted, but did not 

‘‘ come off ”; his form, however, was as usual a reve¬ 
lation of grace, ease and power. 

Since we have been here, that is, since May 6th, it 
has really rained hard but one half day, and we have 
had constant sunshine (of course, I mean “shine” of 


Only Letters 311 

the inconstant London brand), to an extent that i 
never believed possible. This has been delightful for 
our various goings and doings, and a total reversal 
of all my previous experiences when constant rains 
have either marred or forbidden divers contemplated 
excursions. 

As the time for our return draws on, I find myself 
growing a bit restless and am conscious of a longing 
for the home-land once more. A year actually is a 
long time to be separated from home and kindred 
despite the pleasures of foreign travel, intense as they 
are to me. I could never bring myself to live abroad 
permanently, and to cast in my lot with limitations 
that are so irksome to most men born and bred in our 
environment. No! I could never incessantly stem 
the tide of that dogged refusal to recognize insistently 
existing conditions, or to adopt those modern 
methods and improvements, that have long been in¬ 
dispensable necessities with us. 

Lodged as we now are in Kensington West, ten 
minutes easily will and constantly does land me at 
that wonderful group of collections at South Kensing¬ 
ton wherein I take a deal of deliberate, and in view 
of the museo-phobic views of the family, I need not 
add, solitary pleasure. Always a confirmed museum 
prowler, I have in my several visits to this side seen 
most of the notable collections. In the light of such 
considerable experience, I easily reach the conclusion 
that alike in transient interest for the ordinary visitor, 
or for exhaustive scientific research, the endless col¬ 
lections of this great city leave little to be desired. 
England has not, of course, gathered all of the best 


312 


Only Letters 

in any one department of art or science, but certainly 
much of the very best in all; while in the literature 
bearing upon these subjects (much of it priceless), 
freely accessible to any one, she stands quite alone in 
the forefront. Furthermore, it must be conceded 
that in the “arts collective” England possesses pecul¬ 
iar qualifications, such as ripe scholarship, a long 
purse, and at crucial crises, a ductility of conscience 
that lends itself readily to the gentle art of discrimi¬ 
nating spoliation. In the British Museum, for ex¬ 
ample, one is constantly reminded by “glorious 
ends” that such are often called upon to justify ig¬ 
noble “ means.” 

I was much entertained one day last week at an 
International Shooting Match at clay targets held at 
the “Old Welsh Harp” at Hendon, between teams 
of ten English and ten Americans, in which our men 
did wonders on a dark and blustery day, simply out¬ 
classing their opponents. Some of the English 
“cracks” were elaborating reasons why they did not 
make a better showing when a Fine looking young 
fellow whom every one your “ Lordshipped” broke 
in with, “Oh, I say, that’s all rot.” “You know the 
Yankees can shoot all around us; ” whereat all of the 
Yankees within ear-shot chuckled mightily. 

Another recent exhibition that greatly interested 
me was a series of fencing matches between a lot of 
French. German and Italian masters,the leading Eng¬ 
lish swordsmen here, and a few of their most expert 
pupils. It was an astonishing exhibition of skill 
with foils, sabres, and the regulation dueling swords, 
and I found it absorbingly interesting to watch the 


313 


Only Letters 

attacks, defense and marvelous activity and grace of the 
contestants. The master of ceremonies in introduc¬ 
ing a famous French swordsman and constantly re¬ 
curring duelist, said in conclusion, ‘‘“Mons-has 

been ‘ in ’ the bodies of many of his illustrious country¬ 
men, and in the ‘hearts’of all true swordsmen! ” — 
Certainly sententious this, and I thought, rather neat! 

As ever yours, 

F. 


London, June 21st, igoi. 

My dear M-: 

At length and at last after I won’t say 
how many years of hopes deferred, I have accom¬ 
plished an uneventful but supremely delightful 
ninety-two mile voyage down the “Stream of 
Pleasure ” (most happily so styled) from Oxford to 
London. By an afternoon train on Monday last to Ox¬ 
ford, devoting Tuesday to that, as you very well know, 
most interesting old city then looking its best from 
the fact that all of the extra floral decorations of 
“ Eight Week ” were still “ in situ,” and hence other¬ 
wise grim, sleepy old “quads” fairly blazed or 
gleamed according to the predominance of geranium 
or daisy in the hundreds of window boxes outside 
the students’ quarters. I had for a guide a really 
pathetic man no longer young who had evidently 
seen better days (and peradventure, evil ones through 
a glass), who was, in fact, the dregs of a gentleman. 
Thoroughly posted on everything connected with the 





3H 


Only Letters 

place, well up in English history, and adding to a 
keen (English “keen" of course), sense of humor, 
a goodly stock of anecdotes of past and present 
Oxonians, he was a most agreeable companion, 
used H’s freely, and evidently from force of habit, 
had no trace of the parrot when explaining things; 
was in short, abundantly well worth his shilling the 
hour. 

I left the “Mitre" a little after bacon, eggs, and 
nine o’clock on Wednesday morning, strolled down 
to Folly Bridge, and there boarded a trim little pro¬ 
peller, and with about a dozen others, set out upon 
our two days’ voyage down the historic river. 
While most felicitously styled “Stream of Pleasure," 
the Thames is at the same time distinctly an avenue 
of trade, an admirable system of weirs and locks, 
setting every gallon of its tide to work and permitting 
of the passage to and fro of a very considerable freight 
traffic. 

Leaving the little pier, we glide past the long line 
of rowing club-houses now all gay with flowers, 
and animate with white flannels, “ straws " with gay 
club-bands, and the lively calling and banter of a lot 
of rowing men who yet linger on after the recent 
“Eight Week." Then down through that supremely 
lovely reach bordering Christ Church Meadow, cov¬ 
ered with new-mown hay and with the stately tower 
of Old Magdalen mirrored for an instant in a silver 
streak where the winding Cherwel’s tiny tribute 
is lost in Isis’ flood. We can faintly hear in the dis¬ 
tance the creaking of the jackdaws as they wheel 
around the ancient tower while out of the billows of 


3*5 


Only Letters 

new fallen grass close at hand, skylarks in quick suc¬ 
cession are fluttering aloft in a very ecstasy of song. 
It was a perfect June morning, bright and clear with 
a gentle breeze ruffling the oily stream and with 
wreaths of midst rising from the gleaming surface. 
Nature seemed especially benign and anxious to take 
us into her intimate confidence as we glide along the 
narrow winding river through the grass fields 
with their great swathes of new-mown hay 
that roll out to the water’s edge, and charge 
the warm, soft air with their delicious fragrance 
blended with that of the wild rose that grew 
in great clumps everywhere. It was especially de¬ 
lightful to note the abundance and fearless confidence 
of the birds; flocks of pheasants, and of those great 
wood pigeons were feeding in the grass stubble close 
to the shore. Bunches of beautiful crested plover 
standing motionless on one leg, to watch us glide by, 
while thicket and copse on every side fairly rang with 
the flood of song from thrushes, blackbirds, bull¬ 
finches and linnets, a countless “ choir invisible” of 
sweet singers. On the stream, water-rats swam 
everywhere; wild ducks were only so in name, as 
they led their broods of little black “ powder puffs ” 
close by us and only sailed slowly under the banks 
when the wash of our screw disconcerted the tiny, 
beady eyed ducklings. What duck-children dislike, 
duck parents had best shun,—parents other than 
web-footed, here, pause and ponder. Coots in 
black velvet with coral bills, dab-chicks, grebes and 
water hens ran through the reeds with perfect uncon¬ 
cern, and permitted us to approach within a few 

♦ 


316 Only Letters 

yards of them, and the superb little kingfishers all 
emeralds and gold, kept flashing up and down stream 
like living jewels. Swans abound all along the river 
often in pairs with their broods, “ ma ” sailing slowly 
ahead, followed by six or eight gray, fluffy cygnets 
in a close bunch and kept so “ rounded up ” by “ pa ” 
as a pugnacious postscript. When the brood was a 
late one, and its members small, scarce cygnets yet. 
we frequently met swans with six or more little 
heads peeping out in a bunch from behind ma’s 
stately neck, and they all nestling together on her 
broad back and being so carried in a snowy barge of 
state. With the “endorsement” of half a dozen 
such “live cygnetures ” on her back, Mrs. Swan must 
certainly have been negotiable at either “bank” ? 

For many miles the river is very narrow and bor¬ 
dered on either hand by broad meadows, in which 
the grass was newly cut, and in consequence we 
sailed through an atmosphere of delightful fragrance. 
When we ran into a lock, of which we pass thirty- 
three in all, roses in great profusion and exquisite 
perfection replace the homespun breath of harvest. 
There is a great floral rivalry among the Thames 
lock-keepers and at many of the locks the keeper’s 
cottage stands in a little garden wherein the emblem 
of England is cultivated in great variety, one man 
stating that “ ’e ’ad fifty-eight different roses then all 
ablowin’, sir!” At many of these stops, the 
keeper or his wife or children present some of their 
finest specimens to the ladies, and thus by nightfall 
our boat had accumulated a fine floral display. Nor 
was the floral contribution of unguided nature to be 


Only Letters 317 

despised; all along the stream were thick clumps of 
yellow iris, white lilies, starred the quiet stretches of 
back water, beside great beds of tall reeds and 
rushes, while on the banks elders in snowy bloom, 
foxgloves and daises, buttercups and blue corn flow¬ 
ers shared their beauties with great masses of pop¬ 
pies flaming in the ripening grain. The Thames val¬ 
ley is famous for its fine trees including many of 
great age,—elms and beeches, limes and oaks, cedars, 
yews, etc. It is the custom here to cut out the top 
of the elm which transforms it into a low spreading 
tree like the oak, and quite unlike those “upended” 
feather-dusters that represent elms in many a Yankee 
village I wot of. 

All the way from Oxford down, the river is lined 
with splendid specimens of these stately trees, to 
which long ranks of pollard willows and rows of 
Lombardy poplars lend the picturesque element, and 
in many of the old gardens, ancient yews trimmed in 
all manner of quaint devices further add at least a 
suggestion of the grotesque. We pass at various 
points old-tide mills with their ponderous wheels of 
black oak, fringed with bright green mosses and 
dropping seeming showers of diamonds as they 
slowly revolve. Weirs with little foaming falls and 
tiny cataracts abound, and around them (and indeed 
everywhere), gathers in surprising numbers, that 
unhorsed monument to patience and to hope de¬ 
ferred, the Thames angler. On either bank, fishers 
of both sexes and all ages were seldom out of sight, 
wooing peradventure the least “contagious” fishes 
of the British realm, with a knowledge of lures and 


318 Only Letters 

baits that I fancy conduces to the peaceful lapsing of 
a life well spent in systematic avoidance. Every bit 
of back water, quiet reach or tumbling fall, had its 
complement of serious, silent, absorbed men, often 
with an astonishing array of paraphernalia for the 
presumptive capture of the either totally absent or 
habitually abstemious finny tribes. We passed hun¬ 
dreds of broad punts anchored in quiet nooks, 
notably near reed beds, each with its load of red¬ 
faced resignation seated in armchairs and usually 
abundantly supplied with creature comforts both 
solid and fluid. There they sat coatless and waist¬ 
coatless the livelong day, catching very short gudgeons 
at very long intervals, but to a man with contentment 
writ so large upon their faces that even the passing- 
scoffer who thoughtlessly associates the catching of 
fishes with fishing, might discover that the real 
pleasures of angling scorn such belittling limitations 
as catching anything. At Caversham Lock, where 
we made a considerable stop, I saw an old fellow 
suddenly commence to reel up violently as his rod 
bent to the water’s edge, so impelled by a “ fellow 
feeling,” I ran over to him and snatching up a landing- 
net large enough for a thirty pound salmon, told him 
I would net his catch for him. This soon reached the 
surface, and proved to be two shingles nailed to a 
short bit of scantling, plus a good bunch of weeds. 
Poor old chap! he looked so disappointed, but soured 
suddenly upon my advising him to “ keep a tight 
line,” as these big fellows often tear loose at the last 
moment! Of course 1 never so much as faintly 
smiled, and he being a native doubtless concluded that 1 


Only Letters 319 

actually regarded the capture of “ kindling wood" as 
a legitimate aquatic sport. 

And so that glorious June day waxed and waned as 
we loiter in locks and down the gradually widening 
stream, slowly but steadily parting with the sincere 
rusticity of the early morning hours. .Villages with 
their red-tiled, or thatched roofed cottages and the 
constantly recurring “Angler’s Arms," where the 
“arms" of would-be anglers lift countless pots of 
“extra-bitter" to the sunburnt countenances else¬ 
where noted. Ancient churches built of broken black 
flints with square ivy mantled towers, each with its 
colony of “ daws " or starlings, continue to multiply, 
and we commence to feel the insidious influence of 
the mighty city below. 

Just as the sun was sinking behind a great planta¬ 
tion of sombre firs, we made fast to a little pier at 
Henley, above the bridge, and in front of the “ Angel," 
a glance at which suggested “visits few and far 
between " (bar race week), so I gat me over to the 
Red Lion. Here I stowed a very good dinner, read a 
couple of stale country papers, and after a stroll in 
the long twilight, up the silent “high," I ascended 
a huge four-post becanopied altar, dedicated to 
“Momus,"and anon am drifting down the blessed 
stream of a dreamless oblivion. 

As ever yours, 


F. 


320 


Only Letters 

London , June 22d } 1901. 

My dear M-: 

Stirring betimes next morning and early 
to market, where I filled a small wicker hamper with 
those utterly incomparable English strawberries, 
“just in from my own ‘ garding,’ sir." Did you ever 
taste anything more luscious than a British straw¬ 
berry at its best ? Its leaves done in gold richly 
deserve their place on the coronets of English nobles 
as that particular “ pine ’’ is quite without a “ peer "— 
“ me judice," and I wot a hearty welcome awaits 
that hamper from the not overfed brood at “ De Vere 
Gardens West." After eggs the inevitable bacon 
consequential, and a peep into an open church door 
hard by the river, I again board the Oxford and 
“pass the time of day" with the captain, in sooth a 
very jolly mariner with a nasal hue clearly indicating 
that “following the water" (straight), was not his 
exclusive pursuit. He seemed to be a prime favorite 
with every one along the river, especially with lock- 
keepers of the gentler sex, for each of whom he had 
a bit of gossip, chaff or banter. I noticed that he left 
few locks without a “ finest" rose in his buttonhole, 
and that he sailed into each succeeding one roseless 
all. At the end of the day his “round-up" of roses 
“for the old woman" was simply magnificent, such 
was this crafty skipper “ sub-rosa." Under way by 
9: 30, running first between the booms “ in situ" to 
mark the contracted course, for the great race now so 
near at hand, we shall just miss it. Did ever you see 
such swarms of boats everywhere; boats of all sorts 
and sizes, but especially of punts and wherries, there 



321 


Only Letters 

seemed to be thousands of them. The house-boats, 
many of them now occupied, were covered with 
flowers, with awnings spread, and shining with their 
new coats of paint and varnish and resplendent 
polished brasses. A very small and unnoticeable one 
was pointed out to me as renting for one hundred 
and fifty guineas the week, a bit “ stiff ” I thought, but 
really economy if one were able to pay five hundred. 

From Henley down we are constantly passing fine 
houses and grounds with their great sweeps of that 
peerless deep-piled, English velvet sod, to which we 
may not attain, and with flowers in endless profusion 
under those magnificent trees that are seldom absent 
from the landscape here. It must be admitted that 
the beauties of nature, and especially the screening 
powers of “ the ivy green,” were constantly requisi¬ 
tioned to cover and condone architectural sins that 
were heinous. This is especially the case as we near 
London,—the suddenly and indigestibly “ rich,” love 
propinquity, but there are many fine old mansions 
well worthy their exquisite settings. “Cliefden,” 
Astor’s “Seat” (distinctly better than his “stand¬ 
ing”), is perched on the top of an almost mountain, 
embowered in great forest trees, that were well 
grown long before the “ ruling figures ” for “ skunk- 
pelts ” was a matter of ancestral moment. The view 
up and down the Thames valley must be glorious, the 
vast house seen from a distance strongly suggested 
one of our great summer resort hotels, but this of 
course a nearer view may dissipate, especially as its 
former owner, His Grace of Westminster, spent vast 
sums upon its adornment. 


322 


Only Letters 

And now it is pleasure parties incessant. Tall, 
handsome girls in “sailor hats” (the head-piece that 
here robs with equal impartiality, the cradle and the 
grave), in white duck, singly or in pairs, poling loads 
of masculine supineness, lolling on refulgent cushions, 
smoking “bulldogs” and taking “things” excess¬ 
ively easy in their spotless flannels, as they watch 
these often skilful “punters,” and secure the con¬ 
tinuity of such service by an occasional word of com¬ 
mendation. Many of these girls have their sleeves 
rolled up to the shoulder, often revealing shapely 
“ nut-brown” arms, up and down which slide a bar¬ 
baric profusion of “ bangles ” as they deftly ply their 
poles, and each, 1 noticed, had one breadth of the 
usually white duck skirt, soaked from the drippings 
of that pole. Schoolboys in “sweaters” and in other 
“ argosies” deep laden with a plump and placid bal¬ 
last of prone parents, brothers and sisters, sister’s 
friends, and of dogs no stint, coatless “’Arrays” 
with “’Arriets ” ia wherries, and wonderful cos¬ 
tumes, constantly “catching crabs,” and shouting 
“ H ’’-less greetings to passing friends. Now comes 
along a country bride and groom, being rowed in a 
barge by the wedding party. The bride, a pretty, 
buxom young woman with deep red cheeks, and a 
beehive cone of brown hair surmounted by a 
“sailor,” spiked on with huge pins, and seemingly 
resting on the tip of her accommodatingly retrousse 
nose. The groom, a fine stalwart fellow of five and 
twenty, doubtless quite a man in his every-day 
clothes, but now suffering visibly from the unwonted 
thraldom of a “brand new’’suit of super-shiny black 


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broadcloth, which he wore with the grace and 
abandon of plate-armor. Lots of bareheaded college 
men in flannels and pipe clayed shoes, punting or 
rowing up to their camps with a boat load of luggage 
and provisions, for a “ week-end" loaf; in short, an 
endless procession of self-propelling humanity on 
pleasure bent, ebbed and - flowed along the entire 
forty-six miles of our second day’s voyage. During 
the afternoon, a series of brisk showers drove many 
boats to cover under the overhanging boughs of great 
elms and willows, and we pass scores of “ al fresco ” 
tea parties which are most entertaining. Some had 
built fires and were boiling the kettle on a pole quite 
a la Maine woods, but the most of such brewings 
were being done with small oil stoves or spirit lamps. 
It was simply miles of incessant “ picnics,” covering 
the entire range of possibilities from “grave to gay, 
from lively to severe.” Some were eating unsavory 
looking chunks of food from greasy newspapers, and 
drinking presumable tea from smoked tin cups, 
while some “ fared sumptuously” from dainty tables 
laid across their punts with spreads of beautiful 
china, and silver from those tea-baskets with their 
astonishing condensation of conveniences that are 
such features in the shop windows of May fair. We 
passed many large parties where perhaps a dozen 
boats had evidently joined forces, and who seemed 
to divide their energies between the altogether serious 
business of making tea and the lighter pastime of 
making love, much of which latter widely popular 
pursuit was carried on in a remarkably unfurtive 
manner. As a matter of fact, the calm indifference 


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of our English cousins to the cognizance of the gen¬ 
eral public of those minor endearments which I am 
persuaded obtain from pole to pole, constantly sur¬ 
prises me and this indifference to a general espionage, 
is by no means confined to “Tommy Atkins ” and 
the perambulator pusher,—witness Hyde Park of any 
fine Sunday, post-meridam 

Lunched at the “ White Hart” at Windsor (thrice 
as “ white” and one-fourth as “hearty” as the same 
house of ’73). We found the streets alive with Eton 
boys in their short jackets, wide turn over collars, 
droll little pot-’ats, fresh faces and ditto manners. 
Our rose-winning captain showed me a little house 
below Windsor which these boys frequent for 
“feeds” where a favorite trick is to tie the old pro¬ 
prietor to a large elm, and then shy all the crockery 
at him, paying liberally for all damage done before 
leaving,—in fact the man does a large trade in cheap 
chinaware to be “broke on the premises.” These 
boys travel in squads of forty or fifty, and seem to 
be at once the terror, joy and pride of the neighbor¬ 
hood where they enjoy unbounded immunity. Below 
Windsor, the Thames rapidly grows sordid, and the 
“ Stream of Pleasure ” is henceforth quite given over 
to traffic. Huge, black barges, panting tugs, and 
cargo boats replace the fleets of pleasure craft; fish¬ 
ermen, if anything, multiply, but are noticeably lack¬ 
ing in that sedateness and decorum demanded by a 
proper enjoyment of the “contemplative man's 
recreation,” receding banks turn from turf to gravel, 
factories, ill smelling and eye offending multiply, and 
the river has become quite “bald,” there being no 


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more “locks to part,” no roses to smell, and the 
grimy pall of great London commences to taint the 
sky and air. Anon we reach Kingston, ninety-two 
miles from Oxford, a point so well within the unat¬ 
tractive zone, that 1 leave the boat, and by train am 
soon back in town, and so endeth perhaps the slow¬ 
est but certes the most delightful inland voyage so 
far vouchsafed me. 

And now, my dear M., I will bring to a close a 
series of letters that has at least followed in a fairly 
coherent sequence our goings and doings this year 
past. I conclude that this will reach you on your be¬ 
loved Maine island, a few days before we land, when 
of course, I will promptly write you. We sail on 
the Deutschland on the 28th, and in a very brief space 
thereafter we will doubtless be of that suddenly 
sobered company, reluctantly gathered around the 
denuded tables silently rehearsing plausible pro¬ 
grammes of profitable forgetfulness, this of course, 
in anticipation of certain “customs,” “more honored 
in the breach than the observance.” 

Good-bye then to you and yours, until we meet in 
the very best land that ever was, for those born and 
bred in it, to come home to, and thank God for. 

As ever yours, 


F. 







I 



























NOV 25 1904 



















